!55fe¥ONDEPL  STORY©/ 

LINCOLN 


C.M.STEVENS 


LINCOLN  ROOM 

UNIVERSITY  OF  ILLINOIS 
LIBRARY 


MEMORIAL 

the  Class  of  1901 

founded  by 

HARLAN  HOYT  HORNER 

and 

HENRIETTA  CALHOUN  HORNER 


THE  WONDERFUL 
STORY  OF  LINCOLN 


"1  see  him,  as  he  stanas, 
With  gifts  of  mercy  in  his  outstretched  hands; 
A  kindly  light  within  his  gentle  eyes, 
Sad  as  the  toil  in  which  his  heart  grew  wise ; 
His  lips  half  parted  with  the  constant  smile 
That  kindled  truth  but  foiled  the  deepest  guile; 
His  head  bent  forward,  and  his  willing  ear 
Divinely  patient  right  and  wrong  to  hear : 
Great  in  his  goodness,  humble  in  his  state, 
Firm  in  his  purpose,  yet  not  passionate, 
He  led  his  people  v/ith  a  tender  hs^nd, 
And  won  by  love  a  sway  beyond  command." 

George  H.  Boker, 


Inspiration  Series  of  Patriotic  Americans 

THE  WONDERFUL 
STORY    OF    LINCOLN 


AND  THE  MEANING  OF  HIS  LIFE 
FOR  THE  YOUTH  AND  PAT- 
RIOTISM OF  AMERICA 


By  C  M.  STEVENS 
'Author  of  *'The  Wonderful  Story  of  Washington" 


NEW  YORK 
CUPPLES  &  LEON  COMPANY 


Copyright,  1917,  by 
CUPPLES  &  LEON  COMPANY 


Printed  in  U.  S.  A. 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

I.    Introductory  CoNsroERATioNS 1 

A  Personal  Life  and  Its  Interest  to  Americans. 

The  Process  of  Life  from  Within. 

A  Life  Built  as  One  Would  Have  the  Nation. 

II.    The  Problem  of  a  Worth-While  Life  ....        9 

The  Lincoln  Boy  of  the  Kentucky  Woods. 
Home-Seekers  in  the  Wild  West. 
A  Wonderful  Family  in  the  Desolate  Wilderness. 
Way-Marks  of  Right  Life. 

III.  The  Lincoln  Boy 27 

How  the  Lincoln  Boy  Made  the  Lincoln  Man. 
Some  Signs  Along  the  Early  Way. 
Illustrations  Showing  the  Making  of  a  Man, 
Lincoln's  First  Dollar. 
The  Characteristics  of  a  Superior  Mind. 

IV.  The  Wilderness  as  the  Garden  op  Political 

Liberty 45 

Small  Beginnings  in  Public  Esteem. 
Tests  of  Character  on  the  Lawless^  Frontier. 
The  Pioneer  Missionary  of  Humanity. 
Experiences  in  the  Indian  War. 
Life-Making  Decisions. 

V.    Business  Not  Harmonious  with  the  Struggle 

FOR  Learning 68 

Making  a  Living  and  Learning  the  Meaning  of  Life. 
Out  of  the  Wilderness  Paths  into  the  Great  Highway. 
Lincoln's  First  Law  Case. 
The  Man  Who  Could  Not  Live  for  Self  Alone. 

VI.    Helpfulness  and  Kindness  of  a  Worth- While 

Character 83 

The  Love  of  Freedom  and  Truth. 
Wit-Makers  and  Their  Wit. 
Turbulent  Times  and  Social  Storms. 
The  Frontier   "Fire-Eater." 
Honor  to  Whom  Honor  Is  Due. 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER  PAGE 

VII.    Simplicity  and  Sympathy  Essential  to  Genu- 
ine Character 101 

Nearing  the  Heights  of  a  Public  Career. 

Some  Characteristics  of  Momentous  Times. 

The  Beginnings  of  Great  Tragedy. 

The  Life  Struggle  of  a  Man  Translated  Into  the  Life 

Struggle  of  a  Nation. 
Some  Human  Interests  Making  Lighter  the  Burdens  of 

the  Troubled  Way. 

VIII.    The  Man  and  the  Confidence  of  the  People    .    121 

Typical  Incidents  From  Among  Momentous  Scenes. 
Experiences  Demanding  Mercy  and  Not  Sacrifice. 
Humanity  and  the  Great  School  of  Experience. 
Simple  Interests  That  Never  Grow  Old. 
Some  Incidents  From  the  Great  Years. 

IX.    Falsehood  Aids  No  One's  Truth 140 

Freedom  to  Misrepresent  Is  Not  Freedom. 
Homely  Ways  To  Express  Truth. 

X.    The  Friend  of  Humanity 156 

The  Great  Tragedy. 

The  Time  When  "Those  Who  Came  To  Scoff  Remained 

To  Pray." 
Some  Typical  Examples  Giving  Views  of  Lincoln's  Life. 
Remembrance  At  the  End  of  a  Hundred  Years. 

XI.    Concluding  Reflections 168 


A  Masterpiece  of  Meaning  for  America. 
The  Harmonizing  Contrast  of  Men. 
The  Mission  of  America. 


LINCOLN 

AND  AMERICAN  FREEDOM 


CHAPTER  I 
INTRODUCTORY  CONSIDERATIONS 

I.     A  PERSONAL  LIFE  AND  ITS  INTEREST  TO  AMERICANS 

** America  First"  has  probably  as  many  varieties 
of  meaning  and  use  as  *' Safety  First."  It  means  to 
every  individual  very  much  according  to  what  feel- 
ings it  inspires  in  him  of  selfishness  or  patriotism. 
We  are  inspired  as  we  believe,  and,  to  be  an  Ameri- 
can, it  is  necessary  to  appreciate  the  meaning  and 
mission  of  America. 

American  history  is  composed  of  the  struggle  to 
get  clear  the  meaning  of  American  liberty.  Through 
many  years  of  distress  and  sacrifice,  known  as  the 
Revolutionary  War,  the  American  people  freed 
themselves  from  un-American  methods  and  mas- 

1 


THE  STORY  OF  LINCOLN 


teries  imposed  on  them  from  across  the  sea.  Out 
of  that  turmoil  of  minds  came  forth  one  typical 
leader  and  American,  George  Washington.  But  we 
did  not  yet  have  clear  the  meaning  of  America,  and 
through  yet  more  years  of  even  worse  suffering,  in- 
volving the  Civil  War,  we  freed  ourselves  from  the 
war-making  methods  and  masteries  entrenched 
within  our  own  government.  Out  of  that  political 
turmoil  of  minds  appeared  another  American,  Abra- 
ham Lincoln,  whose  life  represents  supremely  the 
most  important  possibilities  in  the  meaning  and  ideal 
of  America.  To  know  the  mind-making  process  that 
developed  Washington  and  Lincoln  is  to  know  not 
only  the  meaning  but  also  the  mission  of  America. 

Every  American  child  and  every  newcomer  to  our 
shores  is  in  great  need  to  understand  clearly  and 
indisputably  their  interest  in  American  freedom,  as 
being  human  freedom  and  world  freedom,  if  they  are 
to  realize  and  fulfill  their  part  as  Americans. 

The  American  vision  of  moral  freedom  and  social 
righteousness  can  in  no  way  be  made  clearer  than 
in  studying  the  process  of  development  that  individ- 
ually prepared  Washington  and  Lincoln  to  be  the 
makers  and  preservers  of  a  developing  democracy  for 
America  and  for  the  American  mind  of  the  world. 

Lincoln's  early  life  has  interest  and  meaning  only 
for  those  who  are  seeking  to  understand  the  pioneer 


INTRODUCTORY  CONSIDERATIONS      3 


political  principles,  fundamental  in  character  and 
civilization,  out  of  which  could  develop  a  mind  and 
manhood  equipped  for  the  greatest  and  noblest  of 
human  tasks.  To  take  his  '* backwoods"  experiences 
and  their  comparatively  uncouth  incidents,  as  in- 
teresting merely  because  they  happened  to  a  man 
who  became  famous,  is  to  miss  every  inspiration, 
value  and  meaning  so  important  in  building  his  way 
as  man  and  statesman.  To  read  the  early  incidents 
of  Lincoln's  life  for  the  isolated  interest  of  their 
being  the  queer,  peculiar  or  pathetic  biography  of  a 
notable  character  has  little  that  is  either  inspiring 
or  informing  to  a  boy  in  the  light  of  present  experi- 
ences and  methods  of  living.  Indeed,  many  social 
episodes  of  pioneer  customs  are  seemingly  so  trivial 
or  coarse,  in  comparison,  as  to  detract  in  respect 
from  a  boy's  ideal  of  the  historical  Lincoln. 

The  pioneer  frontier  was  the  social  infancy  of  a 
new  meaning  for  civilization.  Its  lowly  needs  of 
humble  equality  were  the  first  social  interests  of  Lin- 
coln, and  the  wonderful  story  of  his  life  in  that  place 
and  time,  if  told  as  merely  historical  happenings,  in- 
cidentally noticeable  only  because  they  happened  to 
Lincoln,  becomes  more  and  more  frivolous  and  dis- 
esteeming  in  interest  to  boyhood,  and  to  the  general 
reader,  as  current  social  customs  develop  away  be- 
yond those  times.    This  is  why  such  strained  efforts 


THE  STORY  OF  LINCOLN 


have  been  made  to  give  the  incidents  of  his  social  in- 
fancy a  pathetic  interest,  or  some  other  sympathetic 
appeal,  where  everything  was  so  unromantic,  indus- 
trious, simple,  enjoyable  and  faithful  to  the  earth. 
Those  lowly  years  were  sacred  privacy  to  him.  He 
knew  there  was  nothing  in  them  for  a  biographer, 
and  he  said  so.  His  experience  is  valuable  only  in 
showing  how  it  developed  a  man.  True  enough,  the 
biographically  uninteresting  trivialities  of  his  early 
years  were  not  from  him  but  from  his  environment. 
This  is  proven  from  the  fact  that  two  wider  contrast- 
ing environments  are  hardly  possible  than  those  of 
Washington  and  Lincoln,  and  yet  out  of  them  came 
the  same  model  character  and  supreme  American. 


n.      THE  PROCESS  OF  LIFE  FROM  WITHIN 

Standard  authorities  have  already  fully  recorded 
Lincoln's  biography  and  its  historical  environment. 
There  yet  remains  the  far  more  difficult,  delicate  and 
consequential  message  from  generation  to  genera- 
tion, so  much  needed  in  patriotic  appreciation,  to 
interpret  his  rise  from  those  vanished  social  origins, 
in  order  that  there  may  be  a  just  valuation  of  his  life 
by  American  youth. 


INTEODUCTORY  CONSIDERATIONS      5 

The  schoolboy  learns  with  little  addition  to  his 
ideals,  or  to  his  patriotism,  or  humanity,  when  he 
reads  of  a  person,  born  in  what  appears  to  be  the 
most  sordid  and  pathetic  destitution  of  the  wild 
West,  at  last  becoming  a  martyr  president.  The 
scenes  in  the  making  of  Lincoln's  life  run  by  too  fast 
in  the  reading  for  the  strengthening  life-interest  to 
be  received  and  appreciated.  The  human  process  of 
Lincoln's  youth,  with  its  supreme  lesson  of  patience 
and  labor  and  growth,  is  lost  in  considering  the  man 
solely  as  a  strange  figure  of  American  history.  If 
that  life  can  be  separated  enough  from  the  political 
turmoil  so  as  to  be  seen  and  to  be  given  a  worthy  in- 
terpretation, there  is  thus  a  service  that  may  be  worth 
while  for  the  American  youth. 

Heroes  have  been  made  in  many  a  historical  crisis 
and  they  represent  some  splendid  devotion  to  a  single 
idea  of  human  worth,  but  Lincoln's  heroism  was  the 
far  severer  test  of  a  hard  struggle  through  many 
years.  He  came  near  encountering  every  discour- 
agement and  in  mastering  every  difficulty  that  may 
befall  any  American  from  the  worst  to  the  best,  and 
from  the  lowliest  to  the  most  responsible  position. 

The  poet  has  expressed  these  valuations  arising 
through  the  frailties  and  vicissitudes  of  his  long, 
tragic  struggle  in  the  following  lines: 


TEE  STORY  OF  LINCOLN 


"A  blend  of  mirth  and  sadness,  smiles  and  tears; 
A  quaint  knight-errant  of  the  pioneers; 
A  homely  hero  born  of  star  and  sod ; 
A  Peasant  Prince;  a  Masterpiece  of  God.'* 

Lincoln's  life  has  much  more  for  American  youth 
than  the  adventure-story  of  a  backwoods  boy  of  pion- 
eer days  on  his  unknown  way  to  be  a  hero  of  Ameri- 
can history.  What  Lincoln  thought  he  was  and  what 
he  made  out  of  his  relations  with  those  around  him 
are  only  incidental  to  the  inspiring  patience  with 
which  he  kept  the  faith  of  high  meaning  within  him, 
and  the  labor  with  which  he  strove  on  until  his  ideal 
came  clear  as  one  of  the  supreme  visions  of  hu- 
manity. 

Every  really  ambitious  American  boy  asks  himself 
the  question,  How  did  he  do  it  ?  The  probably  cor- 
rect answer  is  that  he  didn't  do  it.  He  made  himself 
the  right  man  and  the  right  people  did  it. 

We  do  not  now  hear  so  much  of  Lincoln  as  the 
''fireplace"  student,  because  that  word  no  longer  car- 
ries so  pathetic  a  vision  as  it  did  to  the  American 
boy.  '' Lincoln  the  railsplitter"  has  almost  disap- 
peared from  the  phrases  of  patriotic  eulogy  for  this 
great  American,  because  the  task  and  significance  of 
railsplitting  no  longer  bear  the  force  of  meaning  that 
they  did  to  the  boys  of  Civil- War  days.    This  means 


INTRODUCTORY  CONSIDERATIONS      7 

that,  if  the  American  boy  is  to  receive  any  inspira- 
tion from  the  early  life  of  Lincoln,  there  must  be 
achieved  some  new  and  more  significant  form  of  in- 
terpretation from  the  making  of  his  life  and  char- 
acter. 

Even  the  strong  description  of  Edwin  Markham 
becomes  more  figurative  than  concrete  in  its  illus- 
tration more  poetic  than  material,  when  he  says, 


a 


He  built  the  rail-pile  as  he  built  the  state, 
Pouring  his  splendid  strength  through  every  blow, 
The  conscience  of  him  testing  every  stroke. 
To  make  his  deed  the  measure  of  a  man." 


in.     A  LIFE  BUILT  AS  ONE  WOULD  HAVE  THE  NATION 

Lincoln's  life  may  be  prized  as  much  in  what  he 
did  for  himself  as  in  what  he  did  for  his  country, 
because  in  the  course  of  our  interest  they  mean  the 
same  and  become  the  same.  He  has  shown  to  every 
American  boy  that  the  right  desire,  no  matter  what 
the  circumstances  and  conditions,  will  invariably 
lead  along  the  right  way  to  the  successful  life,  be- 
cause the  successful  character  is  a  successful  career 
for  a  successful  humanity.  Very  clearly  one  thing 
is  sure,  he  was  wonderfully  successful  in  finding  the 


8  TEE  STORY  OF  LINCOLN 


right  thing  to  do  and  in  finding  the  right  way  to 
do  it.  That  is  what  humanity  wants  and  such  a  man 
is  the  human  ideal.  Accordingly,  Lincoln's  personal 
moral  development,  apart  from  his  historical  public 
career,  is  an  introductory  story  inspiring  an  interest 
for  the  patriotic  study  of  his  statesmanship  and  the 
fundamental  principles  of  American  life. 

Any  boy  or  girl  can  appreciate  the  events  that  en- 
tered into  the  making  of  Lincoln's  mind  and  charac- 
ter, but  only  a  student  of  statesmanship  and  history 
can  read  beyond  this  and  appreciate  the  almost  su- 
perhuman task  which  Lincoln  carried  through  to  the 
extinction  of  slavery  and  the  preservation  of  the 
United  States  of  America. 

In  that  view  we  are  not  here  writing  the  biography 
or  history  of  Lincoln  the  Statesman,  nor  of  Lincoln 
the  War  President,  for  that  work  has  already  been 
exhaustively  and  nobly  done,  but  to  give  the  inspir- 
ing meaning  of  his  experiences  from  which  arose 
the  boy  and  man  representing  above  all  others  the 
meaning  and  mission  of  Americans  and  America. 


CHAPTER  II 

I.      THE  PROBLEM  OF  A  WORTHWHILE  LITE 

Many  of  the  early  events  entering  into  Lincoln's 
life  seem  too  trivial  to  mention  in  the  light  of  his 
great  services  to  America.  But  the  human  struggle 
and  the  moral  achievement  of  a  supreme  American 
ideal  cannot  be  appreciated  or  understood  unless  the 
experiences  buffeting  the  way  to  it,  and  their  cir- 
cumstances, are  known  for  what  they  mean  to  his 
life.  Trivial  experiences  have  very  much  to  do  with 
forming  our  lives  and  without  them  we  can  neither 
appreciate  nor  understand  the  great  events  that  we 
believe  hive  given  us  our  career  and  our  destiny. 

After  being  nominated  for  the  presidency  of  the 
United  States,  Lincoln  was  asked  for  material  from 
his  early  life  out  of  which  to  make  a  biography. 

**Why,"  he  replied  earnestly,  as  if  this  was  a  sa- 
cred privacy  in  his  own  profound  struggle,  ^4t  is  a 
great  folly  to  attempt  to  make  anything  out  of  me 
or  my  early  life.  It  can  all  be  condensed  in  a  single 
sentence;  and  that  sentence  you  will  find  in  Grey's 

9 


10  THE  STORY  OF  LINCOLN 

Elegy:    'The  short  and  simple  annals  of  the  poor.' '' 

His  early  friends  all  agree  that  he  was  lazy  and 
idle,  but,  when  we  ask  closer,  they  tell  us  that  he  spent 
his  time  "reading  and  writing  and  arguing."  One 
of  his  most  admiring  friends  hired  him  for  a  certain 
period  and  became  greatly  disgusted  at  the  young 
man's  preference  for  idling  his  time  away  reading. 
Another  friend  one  day  found  him  reading,  and, 
with  the  intention  of  severely  rebuking  him,  asked 
what  he  was  doing.  "Reading  law,"  was  the  reply, 
without  taking  his  eye  from  the  page. 

"Almighty  Gosh!"  was  all  the  disgusted  friend 
could  say.  Reading  was  bad  enough  waste  of  time, 
but  to  be  reading  law  was  beyond  all  use  of  words 
or  censure. 

So,  it  merely  proves  that  no  one  can  be  understood 
by  the  historical  student,  except  as  the  conditions  of 
mental  soil  in  which  the  character  grew  are  under- 
stood. And  especially  is  it  good  to  learn  why  the 
prophet  is  without  honor  in  his  own  countiy,  some- 
times not  even  known  in  his  own  age.  Home  people 
rarely  or  never  understand  the  unusual  worker,  be- 
cause they  cannot  measure  outside  of  their  own  ex- 
perience, and  their  opinions  rarely  give  much  in- 
sight into  the  great  laborer  born  among  them,  with 
the  great  urge,  if  not  the  vision,  of  work  and  the  way. 

Lincoln  is  probably  the  last  Great  American  who 


PROBLEM  OF  A  WORTHWHILE  LIFE    11 

shall  ever  have  to  begin  his  mind-making  as  any- 
thing less  than  an  *'heir  of  all  ages.^'  In  Lincoln's 
case  it  seemed  as  if  all  else  was  banished  that  a  mind 
might  build  itself  up  anew  to  be  a  fundamental  in- 
terpretation of  American  civilization.  Like  the  great 
Newton,  he  built  his  world  of  principle  out  of  the 
particulars  of  original  experience,  and  found  that  it 
was  the  order  of  the  universe.  And  yet,  it  might  be 
said  that  he  was  a  failure  in  particulars  and  minor 
matters,  for  he  thought  in  terms  of  general  humanity 
and  swung  the  world  into  a  new  consciousness  and 
vision  of  the  moral  law. 

As  Mr.  Herndon  says,  *'His  origin  was  in  that  un- 
known and  sunless  bog  in  which  history  never  made 
a  footprint."  The  social  origin  and  development  of 
Christ  were  far  less  obscure,  humble  and  lowly  in 
destitute  and  helpless  environment,  before  the  spe- 
cial task  of  preserving  a  meaning  in  the  earth  as  a 
home  for  man. 

Julia  Ward  Howe  expresses  the  seriousness  at- 
tending  the  possibilities  of  every  new-born  soul,  as 
she  says,  of  Lincoln, 

*^  Through  the  dim  pageant  of  the  yeai'S 
A  wondrous  tracery  appears : 
A  cabin  of  the  western  wild 
Shelters  in  sleep  a  new-born  child, 


12  THE  STORY  OF  LINCOLN 

Nor  nurse,  nor  parent  dear,  can  know 
The  way  those  infant  feet  must  go ; 
And  yet  a  nation's  help  and  hope 
Are  sealed  within  that  horoscope/' 

It  was  certainly  impossible  for  a  pioneer  of  the 
early  frontier  to  imagine  how  the  rich  live  now,  but 
it  is  not  so  hard  for  any  one  now  to  imagine  how 
people  lived  then,  if  he  will  go  into  the  deep  woods 
with  only  a  few  simple  tools  and  try  to  live.  It  can 
be  done  and  it  will  probably  be  a  healthful  experi- 
ence, but  not  an  experience  that  any  person  would 
be  expected  to  try  twice. 

It  is  therefore  not  needful  to  the  setting  of  our 
story  about  the  making  of  a  man,  for  any  extended 
description  to  be  made  of  the  ignorance  and  the  pov- 
erty common  to  those  times. 

It  is  enough  for  us  to  say  with  Maurice  Thompson 
in  his  lines : 

*'He  was  the  North,  the  South,  the  East,  the  West; 
The  thrall,  the  master,  all  of  us  in  one.'' 

Ida  Tarbell,  after  her  extensive  original  researches 
into  the  early  life  of  Lincoln,  very  thoughtfully,  says, 

*'He  seems  to  have  had  as  nearly  a  universal  hu- 
man sympathy  as  any  one  in  history.    A  man  could 


TEE  LINCOLN  BOY 13 

not  be  so  high  or  so  low  that  Lincoln  could  not  meet 
him  and  he  could  not  be  so  much  of  a  fool,  or  so  many- 
kinds  of  a  fool.  He  could  listen  unruffled  to  cant, 
to  violence,  to  criticism,  just  and  unjust.  Amazingly 
he  absorbed  from  each  man  the  real  thing  he  had  to 
offer,  annexed  him  by  showing  him  that  he  under- 
stood, and  yet  gave  him  somehow  a  sense  of  the  im- 
possibility of  considering  him  alone,  and  leaving  out 
the  multitudes  of  other  men  as  convinced  and  as  loyal 
as  he  was.'^ 


n.      THE  LINCOLN  BOY  OF  THE  KENTUCKY  WOODS 

We  may  well  believe  that  the  little  Lincoln  boy 
was  thrilled  with  stories  of  noxious  ** varmints''  and 
wild  ^'Injuns."  As  the  fire  crackled  in  the  wide 
earthen  fireplace  and  the  sparks  flew  up  the  broad 
dirt  chimney,  we  may  well  suppose  the  mystic  super- 
stitions of  the  ignorant  times  thrilled  the  young  mind 
with  vague  fears  and  often  with  indescribable  dread. 

Doubtless  he  often  heard  his  father  tell  the  story 
of  his  own  desperate  boyhood,  how  Mordet^ai,  the 
elder  brother,  had,  just  in  the  nick  of  tim^,  saved  his 
life  from  the  tomahawk. 


14  TEE  STORY  OF  LINCOLN 

Abe's  father  when  a  child  went  out  to  their  clear- 
ing with  his  two  brothers  and  their  father,  whose 
name  was  Abraham.  We  may  be  sure  that  their 
watchful  eyes  looked  closely  into  every  pile  of  brush 
or  clump  of  bushes  that  might  hide  an  Indian.  But 
the  Indians  were  trained  to  hide  like  snakes  or  foxes. 
So  that  which  was  ever  expected  and  feared  hap- 
pened. There  was  a  shot  from  an  unseen  form  in  the 
bushes,  and  the  father  of  the  family  fell  dead. 

Mordecai,  the  eldest,  ran  for  the  cabin,  the  other 
boy  ran  for  help,  but  the  younger  boy,  too  bewildered 
and  not  comprehending  what  had  happened,  re- 
mained by  the  side  of  his  fallen  father. 

As  Mordecai  looked  out  through  the  chinks  of  the 
cabin  to  see  the  enemy,  which  he  supposed  to  be  in 
numbers,  he  saw  a  lone  Indian  come  out  and  seize  the 
boy.  With  quick  aim  he  fired  and  the  Indian  fell 
dead.  The  little  boy,  now  understanding,  began  to 
scream,  when  Mordecai  ran  to  him  and  carried  him 
into  the  cabin. 

It  was  in  the  death  of  this  pioneer  that  the  Lin- 
colns  became  subjected  to  such  poverty.  And  yet  it 
is  doubtful  if  their  poverty  was  much  worse  than 
most  of  those  around  them.  In  this  vision  of  fron- 
tier life  we  can  get  some  idea  at  what  great  cost  has 
been  achieved  the  civilization  that  composes  the 
foundations  of  this  country. 


E03IE-SEEKEFS  IN  THE  WILD  WEST    15 

Lives  seem  insignificant  and  their  experiences 
trivial,  but  in  them  are  the  making  of  all  that  is  good 
and  great.  In  the  making  of  typical  lives  is  to  be 
seen  the  meaning  and  the  making  of  the  nation.  It 
is  said  that  Lincoln's  first  attempts  to  write  his  name 
were  made  with  a  stick  upon  the  ground.  Those  let- 
ters have  long  since  vanished  and  yet  that  name  is 
written  in  sentiments  and  deeds  of  gold  throughout 
the  earth. 

Wilbur  Nesbit  holds  up  the  jewel  of  Lincoln's  life 
in  the  following  lines: 


(( 


Not  as  the  great  who  grew  more  great, 
Until  they  have  a  mystic  fame — 
No  stroke  of  pastime  or  of  fate 
Gave  Lincoln  his  undying  name. 
A  common  man,  er.rth-bred,  earth-born, 
One  of  the  breed  who  work  and  wait, — 
His  was  a  soul  above  all  scorn, 
His  was  a  heart  above  all  hate." 


m.      HOME-SEEKERS  IN  THE  WILD  WEST 

Thomas  Lincoln  became  a  home-seeking  wanderer 
soon  after  the  death  of  his  father.    According  to  the 


16  TEE  STOBY  OF  LINCOLN 

laws  of  that  time,  all  the  property  went  to  the  eldest, 
and  it  may  be  supposed  that  little  attention  was  paid 
in  that  rough  destitute  life  to  the  raising  of  Thomas. 
He  grew  up  simply  *^a  wandering,  laboring  boy," 
whose  hard  circumstances  left  little  ambition  or  hope 
in  him.  But,  in  the  course  of  all  wondrous  events 
and  time,  he  became  a  carpenter,  well  respected,  and 
married  his  cousin,  the  niece  of  the  man  in  whose 
shop  he  worked.  This  niece  was  Nancy  Hanks, 
daughter  of  Joseph  Hanks,  who  had  married  Nan- 
nie Shipley,  a  Quaker  girl.  From  all  authentic  ac- 
counts that  can  be  gathered  concerning  Nancy 
Hanks,  she  was  one  of  God's  great  women. 

This  much  at  least  is  sufficiently  verified  that  she 
was  a  strong,  handsome  girl,  noted  for  her  religious 
zeal,  and  was  one  of  the  most  sought-for  singers  at 
the  marvellous  camp-meetings  of  those  days.  That 
the  marriage  of  Thomas  Lincoln  and  Nancy  Hanks 
was  regarded  as  an  important  community  event  is 
the  testimony  of  several  who  were  present,  for  every 
social  enjoyment  known  to  the  times  was  there,  and 
the  occasion  was  celebrated  with  unusual  demonstra- 
tions of  good  will. 

The  wedding  took  place  June  12,  1806,  and  the 
documents  of  the  marriage  show  that  she  had  enough 
property  left  her  by  her  father  to  require  a  guardian 
appointed  by  the  court.    The  uncle  with  whom  she 


HOME-SEEKERS  IN  THE  WILD  WEST    17 

lived  was  her  guardian,  appointed  on  the  death  of 
her  parents  when  she  was  nine  years  old. 

Documents  in  existence  also  show  that  Thomas 
Lincoln  owned  a  large  tract  of  land,  that  he  held 
responsible  public  position,  and  was  well  respected 
in  his  community.  The  stories  of  shiftlessness  and 
shame  so  long  told  as  truth  must  be  cast  out  as  among 
the  curiosities  of  envious  gossip,  sometimes  ac- 
cepted even  by  those  it  injures  as  true  history. 

A  year  after  the  marriage  of  Thomas  Lincoln  and 
Nancy  Hanks  their  first  child  was  born,  a  girl,  which 
they  named  Nancy.  Twelve  years  later,  after  the 
death  of  her  mother  and  the  marriage  of  her  father 
to  Sarah  Bush  Johnson,  this  daughter  renamed  her- 
self Sarah,  by  which  name  she  was  known  until  her 
death  at  the  age  of  twenty. 

Sarah  was  born  at  Elizabethtown,  Kentucky,  but 
soon  after  the  family  moved  to  a  farm,  bought  sev- 
eral years  before  by  Thomas  Lincoln,  about  four- 
teen miles  away.  There  on  February  12,  1809,  was 
born  one  of  the  greatest  of  all  Americans,  Abraham 
Lincoln. 

The  Lincoln  home  was  so  rude  that  descriptions  of 
it,  in  comparison  with  present  poverty-stricken 
homes,  sounds  like  distressful  destitution,  but  it  was 
the  home  of  frontiersmen  in  pioneer  days.  All  tes- 
timony agrees  that  no  one  suffered  and  that  the  boy 


18  TEE  STORY  OF  LINCOLN 

grew  strong  and  manly,  in  the  abiding  favor  of 
friends,  and  in  the  noble  aspirations  of  a  superior 
destiny. 

When  Abraham  Lincoln  was  seven  years  old  and 
his  sister  Sarah  was  near  nine,  his  father  desired  to 
seek  a  better  home,  which  the  pioneer  always 
dreamed  of  as  farther  on.  He  built  a  flatboat  in  a 
creek  half  a  mile  from  his  house,  put  his  household 
goods  upon  it,  and  floated  down  the  Rolling  Fork  on 
a  voyage  of  discovery  to  Salt  River,  and  down  Salt 
River  to  the  Ohio.  At  Thompson's  Ferry  on  the  In- 
diana shore  he  landed,  stored  his  goods,  and  went 
back  after  his  family,  which  he  brought  through  on 
horseback. 


IV.      A  WONDERFUL  FAMILT  INT  THE  DESOLATE 

WILDERNESS 

Lincoln  tells  us  of  one  thing  his  mother  said  to 
him  which  he  never  forgot,  though  he  was  not  yet 
nine  years  old.  Her  thought  for  him  became  his 
dream  of  her. 

^'Mother  wants  her  little  boy  to  be  honest,  truth- 
ful, and  kind  to  everybody,  and  always  to  trust  in 
God." 


A  WONDERFUL  FAMILY  19 

The  words  of  his  ** angel  mother,"  as  he  named  her, 
were  always  the  guiding  star  of  his  life.  He  always 
wanted  to  be  what  his  mother  said  was  her  desire 
for  him  to  be.  He  often  said,  '^All  I  am  or  hope 
to  be  I  owe  to  my  angel  mother,"  and  yet,  as  a  poet 
has  said  it,  that  mother 

*^Gave  us  Lincoln  and  never  knew." 

An  epidemic  carried  away  Lincoln's  mother  in 
1818  when  he  was  nine  years  of  age.  It  was  the  be- 
ginning of  that  great  man's  acquaintance  with  grief, 
but  the  impression  she  had  made  on  him  never  for- 
sook him.  Her  last  words  to  the  surrounding  friends 
were,  *'I  pray  you  to  love  your  kindred  and  worship 
God." 

When  Elizabeth  Barrett  Browning  asked  Charles 
Kingsley  for  the  secret  of  his  splendid  life,  he  an- 
swered, ^^I  once  had  a  friend."  So  it  was  with  Lin- 
coln. He  once  had  a  friend,  and  he  always  spoke 
of  her  as  his  *' angel  mother." 

So  deeply  had  she  impressed  the  nine-year-old  boy 
with  her  religious  faith  that  he  could  never  be  satis- 
fied until  he  induced  a  preacher  to  preach  a  sermon 
and  offer  a  prayer  over  her  grave. 

In  that  profoundly  earnest  incident  of  sympathy 
is  to  be  seen  the  love  that  leavened  his  life  to  the 


20 THE  STORY  OF  LINCOLN 

making  of  a  man  nobler  than  kings  among  men. 

Of  these  early  years  Lincoln  spoke  but  little,  and 
the  gossip  of  old  people,  who  might  have  told  in- 
teresting incidents,  has  not  proven  altogether  reli- 
able. One  of  these  personal  incidents  told  by  Lin- 
coln of  his  childhood  may  be  regarded  as  typical  of 
his  life.  It  was  from  a  dim  memory  of  what  he  had 
been  taught  concerning  soldiers  and  war. 

Lincoln  said  that  he  had  a  memory  of  only  one  in- 
cident relating  to  the  War  of  1812.  This  happened 
near  the  close  of  the  war.  He  had  been  fishing  and 
had  caught  a  little  fish.  On  the  way  home  he  met  a 
soldier  returning  from  the  war.  He  had  been  told 
that  he  must  be  kind  to  soldiers.  Thinking  of  this, 
he  went  up  to  the  soldier  and  gave  him  the  fish. 

Even  the  wilderness  has  a  succession  of  new  scenes 
and  offers  an  endless  variety  of  revelations  for  the 
growing  mind.  Only  the  will  of  disordered  interests 
is  able  to  get  bad  things  into  the  desires  of  a  child. 
The  Lincoln  boy  was  fortunate  in  living  with  good 
people.  There  was  no  one  to  impress  him  with  false 
ideas  of  life. 

We  may  be  sure  that  there  was  something  superior 
in  Thomas  Lincoln  that  he  sought  out  only  noble 
women,  and  that  noble  women  were  willing  to  trust" 
their  happiness  and  welfare  to  him. 

Thomas  Lincoln  could  not  hope  to  make  a  living 


A  WONDERFUL  FAMILY  21 


after  his  wife  died  and  care  properly  for  his  house- 
hold needs,  including  the  two  motherless  children. 
His  own  homeless  childhood  made  him  tender  toward 
his  little  unmothered  family,  and,  presently,  he  re- 
turned to  Kentucky  and  married  Sarah  Bush  John- 
son, another  of  God's  own  mother- women. 

She  came  with  abundance  of  household  goods  and 
there  was  soon  a  comfortable  Lincoln  home.  She 
loved  the  little  boy  she  found  on  her  arrival  in  the 
Indiana  household,  and  encouraged  him  in  his  eager 
desire  to  know  things. 

The  ten-year-old  Lincoln  was  eager  to  learn  of  the 
wondrous  world  beyond  the  woods  and  he  asked 
many  questions  of  wayfarers  passing  that  way.  One 
day  a  very  trivial  event  happened,  but  in  the  won- 
drous revelation  of  things  to  the  blooming  mind  it 
may  have  been  one  of  the  greatest  in  Lincoln's  life. 

An  emigrant  wagon  broke  down  near  their  place. 
The  wife  and  two  little  daughters  staid  in  Lincoln's 
home  two  or  three  days,  till  the  wagon  was  repaired. 

*'The  woman  had  books,"  so  Lincoln  tells  us  about 
it,  *^and  she  read  us  stories."  It  was  the  first  books 
he  had  ever  seen  and  the  first  book-stories  he  had 
ever  heard.  In  fact,  it  was  also  the  first  educated 
people  he  had  ever  seen.  One  of  the  little  girls  seems 
to  have  impressed  him  deeply,  to  have  awakened  in 
him  a  spiritual  reverence  for  beautiful  girlhood,  and 


22  THE  STOBY  OF  LINCOLN 

to  have  given  him  a  never-dying  vision  of  possible 
sympathy  and  character  for  a  nobler  social  life. 


V.      "WAY-MAEKS  OF  RIGHT  LIFE 

Lincoln's  new  mother  had  three  children  of  her 
own,  but  under  her  management  they  all  lived  to- 
gether, in  the  one-room  house,  in  perfect  harmony 
and  friendship. 

Of  the  little  Lincoln  boy  she  said,  ^'His  mind  and 
mine,  what  little  I  had,  seemed  to  run  together. ''  She 
said  that  there  had  never  been  a  cross  word  or  look 
between  them  and  that  she  loved  the  little  fellow  as 
her  own  child.  One  thing  is  sure,  to  the  American 
people,  Sarah  Bush  Lincoln  has  forever  given  a  sa- 
cred meaning  to  the  name  stepmother  and  hallowed 
its  duties  near  to  the  meaning  of  mother. 

In  her  old  age  she  was  visited  by  a  biographer  of 
Lincoln,  to  whom  she  said,  *'I  had  a  son  John,  who 
was  raised  with  Abe.  Both  were  good  boys,  but  I 
must  say,  both  now  being  dead,  that  Abe  was  the  best 
boy  I  ever  saw,  or  expect  to  see." 

Lincoln's  sister  Sarah,  or  Nancy,  as  she  was  also 
called,  was  a  noble  girl  and  was  of  inestimable  help 
to  Mrs.  Lincoln  in  the  labors  of  a  pioneer  home.  She 
was  quick  to  learn  and  she  did  her  share  in  helping 


WAY-MAEKS  OF  RIGHT  LIFE  23 

her  brother  in  his  desire  to  learn.  There  was  nothing 
remarkable  about  that  brother,  he  was  not  wondrous, 
except  in  one  thing,  and  that  was  his  unceasing  zeal 
to  have  a  greater  mind,  and  for  that  mind  to  be  a 
right  mind. 

His  first  real  school  life  was  to  travel  a  deer  path 
through  the  deep  woods,  nine  miles  each  day,  to 
school. 

He  had  no  time  to  waste  on  useless  knowledge. 
Josh  Billings  once  exclaimed,  lamenting,  "What's 
the  use  of  larnin'  so  much  that  ain't  so."  Lincoln 
thought  there  was  no  use  in  such  foolishness,  and  he 
sought  to  fill  his  mind  only  with  useful  information, 
valuable  toward  a  greater  life. 

For  instance,  he  got  hold  of  a  small  dictionary  and 
he  read  it  through  and  through  with  the  eagerness 
that  many  people  give  to  baseball  news  or  a  novel. 
When  the  book  called  the  "Statutes  of  Indiana"  fell 
into  his  hands  he  could  hardly  eat  or  sleep  till  he  had 
read  it  through.  When  he  finally  got  hold  of  a  gram- 
mar, it  was  no  dry  reading  to  him  and  no  task.  He 
literally  devoured  its  information  and  committed  its 
principles  to  memory,  as  a  value  of  the  finest  wealth. 
He  was  indeed  remarkable  or  wondrous  in  nothing 
but  the  divine  inspiration  to  enlarge  a  useful  mind. 
These  are  the  minds  that  make  life  worth  living  and 
invariably  characterize  the  builders  of  the  world. 


24  TEE  STORY  OF  LINCOLN 


It  appears  that  the  first  approach  of  Lincoln  to 
the  formation  of  a  life-ideal,  his  first  patriotic  vision 
of  American  citizenship,  was  derived  from  reading  a 
life  of  Washington.  A  friendly  neighbor  loaned  him 
the  book.  His  book-shelf  was  a  chink  in  the  log 
house.  One  night  it  rained  into  his  book-shelf  and 
the  next  morning  he  found  his  borrowed  book  bucked 
up  into  a  most  unreadable  shape.  Lincoln's  intro- 
duction to  Washington  was  unhappy  and  significant. 
Trivial  as  the  incident  might  seem,  it  supplies  sug- 
gestions of  character  on  the  way  of  superior  worth 
to  civilization.  Events,  one  by  one,  build  up  or  tear 
down  together  the  structure  of  self  or  of  the  public 
system. 

The  Lincoln  boy  could  have  shielded  himself,  as  to 
the  damaged  book,  behind  personal  irresponsibility 
for  an  accident,  or  he  could  have  flatly  refused  to 
make  good.  If  so,  we  may  well  guess  that  he  would 
never  have  been  President  of  the  United  States,  and 
would  never  have  served  America  in  its  dire  peril  so 
as  to  be  honored  by  the  whole  world.  He  was  not 
that  kind  of  a  character.  As  we  trace  the  steps  of 
moral  integrity,  the  trivial  incident  becomes  power- 
fully significant.  The  Lincoln  boy  made  good.  He 
worked  three  days  for  the  owner  of  the  damaged 
book,  so  that  another  should  not  suffer  loss  through 
any  kindness  or  good-will  to  him;  also,  beyond  that, 


WAY-3IARKS  OF  RIGHT  LIFE  25 

he  could  have  no  rest  nor  peace  while  any  wrong 
existed  between  him  and  another  man. 

From  that  time  on  he  had  before  him  the  vision 
of  a  great  American.  Washington  became  his  ideal 
type  of  character,  and  that  ideal  no  doubt  helped 
much  to  make  him  the  patient  power  he  was  in  the 
great  crisis  of  his  nation's  existence. 

The  rough  and  hard  never  hurt  any  one  if  they  are 
healthy  interests ;  the  rude  and  uncultured  wrong  no 
taste  if  they  are  moral;  and  poverty  injures  nobody 
when  it  is  clean  and  persevering  and  safe.  So  the 
hard  requirements,  rude  living  and  destitute  means 
only  strengthened  the  boy  more  and  more  for  the 
heroic  responsibilities  requiring  such  a  type  of  man- 
hood. 

It  is  said  that  he  memorized  and  often  repeated 
for  self-encouragement  the  homely  old  verses  of  the 
song,  '^Try,  Try  Again." 

"When  you  strive,  it's  no  disgrace 
Though  you  fail  to  win  the  race; 
Bravely,  then,  in  such  a  case, 
Try,  try  again. 

That  which  other  folks  can  do, 
Why,  with  patience,  may  not  you? 
All  that's  been  done,  you  may  do, 
If  you  will  but  try." 


26  THE  STORY  OF  LINCOLN 


In  a  copy  book  the  following  lines,  still  preserved, 
were  written  by  Lincoln : 

**  Abraham  Lincoln 
his  hand  and  pen. 
he  will  be  good  but 
God  knows  when.'^ 

This  pathetic  glimpse  of  the  childhood  dream  may 
account  for  his  profound  interest  in  boys  and  boy- 
hood. When  he  had  reached  world-wide  fame  he 
said,  *'The  boy  is  the  inventor  and  owner  of  the  pres- 
ent, and  he  is  our  supreme  hope  for  the  future.  Men 
and  things  everywhere  minister  unto  him,  and  let  no 
one  slight  his  needs/' 


CHAPTER   III 

I.      THE  LINCOLN  BOY  AND  HIS  SISTER 

The  wilderness  never  brought  forth  a  more  won- 
derful being  than  the  child  that  became  one  of  the 
greatest  names  in  the  history  of  America.  Deep  in 
the  wild  woods  of  Kentucky,  in  the  humblest  condi- 
tions of  nature,  farthest  from  the  inventions  of  so- 
ciety, there  arose  a  mind  that  gave  great  riches  of 
thought  to  the  making  of  civilization. 

Lincoln  and  his  sister  ''hired  out,''  and  the  posi- 
tion of  servant  can  hardly  be  servile  or  menial  with 
such  an  illustrious  American  example,  unless  the 
master  make  it  so.  One  woman,  whose  family  had 
hired  them  both,  testified  to  their  lovable  characters. 
Lincoln  slept  in  the  hay-loft  during  the  period  of  his 
work,  and  he  was  noted  for  being  remarkably  con- 
siderate in  "keeping  his  place,"  and  for  not  coming 
in  * 'where  he  was  not  wanted.''  It  is  said  that  he 
would  lift  his  hat  and  bow  when  he  entered  the  bouse, 

27 


28  THE  STORY  OF  LINCOLN 

and  that  he  was  reliable,  tender  and  kind,  ''like  his 
sister."  We  wonder  if  his  employers  had  only  known 
of  *'the  angel"  they  were  ''entertaining  unawares," 
what  would  have  been  "his  place"  and  where  he 
would  have  been  "wanted."  Every  such  soul  may, 
somewhere  along  the  immortal  way,  be  "an  angel" 
"unaware"  some  time  in  the  meaning  of  the  great 
moral  universe. 

As  showing  the  making  of  Lincoln's  mind,  one  of 
his  first  attempts  at  essay  writing  was  on  the  sub- 
ject of  "Cruelty  to  Animals"  and  another  on  "Tem- 
perance." 

During  his  earliest  acquaintance  with  the  first  law- 
yer he  had  known,  he  wrote  a  paper  on  "American 
Government,"  and  he  anxiously  asked  the  lawyer  to 
read  it  and  pass  an  opinion  on  its  merits.  The  law- 
yer did  so,  declaring  that  the  "world  couldn't  beat 
it,"  and  expressing  the  opinion  that  some  day  the 
people  would  "hear  from  that  boy." 

His  repugnance  toward  acts  of  cruelty  is  shown  by 
the  first  fist  fight  he  ever  had. 

Some  boys  had  caught  a  mud-turtle  and  were  hav- 
ing great  sport  in  putting  a  coal  of  fire  on  its  back 
to  see  it  open  up  its  shell  and  run.  Lincoln  was 
then  not  as  large  as  some  of  the  tormentors  of  the 
poor  animal,  but,  coming  by  and  seeing  what  they 
were  doing,  he  dashed  in  among  them,  knocked  the 


TEE  LINCOLN  BOY  AND  THE  31  AN     29 

firebrand  from  the  boy's  hand,  and  fought  them  all 
away  from  the  turtle.  Then  he  gave  them  a  fierce 
scolding  for  their  cruelty.  With  tears  in  his  eyes  he 
declared  that  the  terrapin's  life  was  as  sweet  to  it  as 
theirs  was  to  them.  His  appeal  was  successful  and 
there  was  freedom  henceforth  in  that  community  for 
the  American  turtle. 


n.      HOW  THE  LINCOLN  BOY  MADE  THE  LINCOLN  MAN 

The  American  boy,  seeing  anything  of  great  in- 
terest acomplished,  wants  to  know  how  it  was  done. 
That  is  true  all  the  way  from  winning  some  game 
at  play  to  making  a  million  in  some  great  enter- 
prise. But  far  more,  in  fact  immeasurably  more,  is 
the  making  of  a  masterful  mind,  the  development  of 
a  nation-making  character,  and  of  a  world-historical 
man.  Such  was  Abraham  Lincoln,  who  was  built  up 
from  what  seems  to  be  nothing  on  to  the  very  high- 
est worth  of  mankind.  How  did  he  do  it?  ^*If  I 
only  knew  how,"  said  a  philosopher-mathematician, 
*^I  could  turn  the  world  over  with  a  lever.''  **If 
I  only  knew  how,"  said  a  philosopher-farmer,  "I 
could  make  a  three-year-old  calf  between  now  and 
next  Christmas."    In  other  words,  the  belief  has 


30  THE  STORY  OF  LINCOLN 

always  prevailed  that  by  thought  made  into  will  any- 
thing can  be  accomplished,  provided  thinking  perse- 
veres in  the  right  way  for  the  right  thing.  Success- 
ful "might''  always  promotes  the  belief  that  it  is 
right  because  it  is  successful,  but  the  "successful"  is 
no  more  than  a  temporary  expedient  toward  coming 
failure,  if  it  is  not  the  righteousness  of  an  immortal 
social  system. 

So  let  us  see  how  Lincoln  did  it.  It  is  not  much 
of  a  mystery  how  he  became  a  masterful  man.  There 
must  be  a  beginning  place,  and,  for  such  a  person, 
it  must  be  a  divine  beginning  place.  He  had  a  lov- 
ing mother  and  a  home.  It  was  the  basis  of  his  be- 
lief in  humanity.  The  heart  of  the  world  he  be- 
lieved to  be  like  the  two  noble-souled  women  who 
mothered  his  young  heart  and  growing  mind.  He 
says  himself  that  he  didn't  do  it  but  that  they  did  it. 
So,  the  first  thing  for  a  boy  who  wants  to  be  a  mas- 
terful man  is  to  take  the  advice  of  Oliver  Wendell 
Holmes  to  have  the  right  kind  of  ancestors.  At  least, 
it  seems  quite  necessary  for  him  to  choose  a  loving 
mother  and  it  will  be  a  lightened  task  for  him  to  do 
the  rest. 

In  1823,  while  going  to  the  Crawford  school,  there 
occurred  an  incident  representing  his  invariable 
sense  of  honor.  A  buck's  head  was  nailed  to  the  wall 
and  one  day,  probably  experimenting  as  all  boys  do. 


TEE  LINCOLN  BOY  AND  THE  MAN     31 

he  pulled  too  hard  on  one  of  the  horns  and  broke  it 
off.  No  one  saw  him  and  when  the  teacher  inquired 
for  the  mischief  maker  Lincoln  promptly  told  how  it 
happened.  The  teacher  believed  him  and  said  no 
more  about  it. 

The  first  reprehensible  thing  known  of  the  Lincoln 
boy  was  done  soon  after  the  death  of  his  sister.  She 
married  at  nineteen  and  died  the  next  year.  Lin- 
coln believed,  as  most  others  believed,  that  she  died 
of  ill-treatment.  There  was  no  way  to  express  his 
fierce  resentment  but  in  writing,  and  he  wrote  some 
scurrilous  letters  to  the  ones  against  whom  he  was 
so  angry.  Some  biographers,  in  the  supposed  cause 
of  history,  have  published  some  alleged  copies  of 
those  letters,  but  at  worst  they  merely  show  what  a 
boy  could  do  in  the  distress  occasioned  by  what  he 
believed  to  be  the  murder  of  his  sister,  whom  we  may 
believe  was  the  one  great  love  of  his  life  after  the 
death  of  his  mother. 

Being  a  good  penman,  Lincoln  was  often  called 
on  to  write  a  line  in  copybooks.  Among  the  proud 
possessors  of  a  copybook  so  favored  was  Joe  Rich- 
ardson. In  his  book  Lincoln  wrote  these  common- 
place, yet  significant  lines: 

"Good  boys  who  to  their  books  apply 
Will  all  be  great  men  by  and  by." 


32 TEE  STORY  OF  LINCOLN 

Lincoln  was  brought  up  in  the  midst  of  supersti- 
tions that  prevailed  in  every  act  of  life,  but  they 
seem  to  have  made  no  impression  on  him.  Many 
of  the  most  estimable  people  believed  the  sun  went 
round  the  earth,  from  the  indisputable  fact  that  in 
the  morning  it  was  on  one  side  of  the  house  and  in 
the  afternoon  was  on  the  other  side.  Many  also  be- 
lieved the  earth  to  be  flat,  because  any  one  trying 
to  go  so  far  as  to  go  around  it  would  naturally  be- 
come lost,  travel  in  a  circle,  as  all  lost  people  do,  and 
come  back  to  the  same  place,  thinking  they  had  gone 
around  the  world. 

People  who  argued  otherwise  were  merely  "stuck 
up^^  and  "just  proud  to  show  themselves  off.'' 
Doubtless,  his  belief  about  the  sun  and  earth  lost  him 
his  first  love  affair. 

He  was  going  to  school  to  Andrew  Crawford,  who 
also  taught  good  manners,  when  he  began  to  ex- 
change special  attention  with  Miss  Roby,  a  fine  lass 
of  fifteen.  He  especially  had  her  gratitude  for  some 
help  he  gave  her  in  a  spelling  class.  When  she  was 
about  to  spell  "defied"  with  a  "y,"  he  pointed  to  his 
eye,  just  in  time  to  save  her  from  disgrace  with  the 
teacher,  and  from  losing  her  place  in  the  class. 

But  one  day  as  they  were  walking  along  the  road 
she  made  a  remark  that  brought  up  an  unfortunate 
subject. 


SOME  SIGNS  33 


**Abe,''  said  she,  **look  yonder,  the  sun  is  going 
down." 

*' Reckon  not,"  was  the  unfortunate  reply.  "It's 
us  coming  up.    That's  all." 

"Don't  you  suppose  I've  got  eyes,"  she  answered 
indignantly. 

"Reckon  so,"  he  replied,  "but  the  sun's  as  still  as 
a  tree.   When  we  're  swung  up  so 's  the  shine 's  cut  off, 


we  call  it  night." 


a 


'Abe,"  said  she,  "you're  a  consarned  fool,"  and 
away  she  went,  leaving  him  to  the  glory  of  his 
"stuck-up  larnin'." 


m.     SOME  SIGNS  ALONG  THE  EARLY  WAY 

The  Lincoln  boy  impressed  all  who  knew  him  as 
being  different  from  other  boys,  though  they  did  not 
know  just  how.  We  now  know  that  the  difference 
consisted  in  his  having  a  purpose  to  have  a  mind 
rather  than  to  have  a  good  time.  And  yet,  Lincoln 
loved  joyful  sports  and  he  was  a  favorite  in  all  the 
social  gatherings  of  the  community.  But  his  mind 
was  not  composed  of  sport  experience,  nor  his  in- 
terest in  life  inspired  by  sport  success.  The  world- 
mind  of  books  contained  more  value  and  richer  prom- 


34  THE  STORY  OF  LINCOLN 

ise  than  the  turmoil  of  happenings  among  compan- 
ions, or  than  those  who  were  juggling  interests  in  the 
hope  of  events. 

Lincoln's  books  were  very  limited  in  number  but 
exceedingly  wide  in  their  humanity.  Weems'  ''Life 
of  Washington"  seems  to  have  given  him  his  ideal  of 
American  character  and  statesmanship,  while  the 
*' Statutes  of  Lidiana"  aroused  his  interest  in  civil 
law  and  the  American  government. 

When  addressing  the  senate  of  the  state  of  New 
Jersey,  in  1861,  Lincoln  said,  "May  I  be  pardoned 
if,  on  this  occasion,  I  mention  that  away  back  in  my 
childhood,  the  earliest  days  of  my  being  able  to  read, 
I  got  hold  of  a  small  book,  such  a  one  as  few  of  the 
yoimger  members  have  ever  seen,  'Weems'  Life  of 
Washington.'  I  remember  all  the  accounts  there 
given  of  the  battlefields  and  struggles  for  the  liber- 
ties of  the  country,  and  none  fixed  themselves  upon 
my  imagination  so  deeply  as  the  struggle  here  at 
Trenton,  New  Jersey.  The  crossing  of  the  river,  the 
contest  with  the  Hessians,  the  great  hardships  en- 
dured at  that  time,  all  fixed  themselves  in  my  mind 
more  than  any  single  revolutionary  event;  and  you 
all  know,  for  you  have  aU  been  boys,  how  these  early 
impressions  last  longer  than  others.  I  recollect 
thinking  then,  boy  even  though  I  was,  that  there 
must  have  been  something  more  than  common  that 


S03IE  SIGNS  35 


these  men  struggled  for.  I  am  exceedingly  anxious 
that  that  thing  shall  be  perpetuated  in  accordance 
with  the  original  idea  for  which  that  struggle  was 
made.'' 

Lincoln  told  one  of  his  friends  that  he  read  through 
every  book  he  had  ever  heard  of  in  his  surroundings 
for  a  distance  of  fifty  miles.  The  industry  with 
which  he  sought  to  learn  and  his  unceasing  endeavor 
to  build  up  his  mind  were  marks  of  the  genius  that 
possessed  him,  the  spirit  that  made  him  one  of  the 
strongest  men  of  a  world-wide  work. 

In  the  whole  country  round  there  was  only  one 
newspaper  subscriber,  and  that  was  in  Gentryville, 
Indiana,  for  a  weekly  paper  from  Louisville.  Lin- 
coln walked  to  town  every  week  to  see  that  paper 
and  discuss  the  news.  By  the  time  he  had  become 
a  man,  in  Menard  County,  Illinois,  his  neighbors 
went  to  him  in  order  to  know  things,  and  he  was  a 
good  custodian  of  the  laiowledge  he  had  gained.  His 
opinions  coincided  with  common  sense.  So,  com- 
mon sense  made  him  President  of  the  United  States, 
saved  a  United  Nation,  and  gave  Lincoln  a  never- 
dying  place  in  the  love  and  honor  of  mankind. 

Lincoln  walked  six  miles  to  borrow  a  grammar, 
and  he  studied  it  till  he  mastered  the  principles  of 
the  English  language.  Many  another  boy  has 
thought  that  he  had  few  troubles  more  unbearable 


36  TEE  STORY  OF  LINCOLN 


than  the  study  of  composition,  but  many  another  boy 
has  not  been  prepared  to  speak  the  world-stirring 
speech,  such  as  was  spoken  by  Lincoln  at  the  dedica- 
tion of  the  battlefield  of  Gettysburg. 


IV.      ILLUSTRATIONS  SHOWING  THE  MAKING  OF  A  MAN 

Lincoln,  very  early  in  life,  believed  that  witnesses 
must  tell  the  truth,  the  whole  truth  and  nothing  but 
the  truth. 

Matilda  Johnson,  his  stepsister,  was  very  fond  of 
him,  and  she  often  ran  away  from  the  house  to  be 
with  him  where  he  was  at  work.  Lincoln  would 
rather  tell  her  stories  than  work,  so  the  mother  for- 
bade the  child  from  following  him  to  work.  But, 
one  morning,  she  disobeyed  and  ran  after  him.  She 
tried  to  surprise  him  by  jumping  up  at  his  back, 
and  catching  him  by  the  shoulders.  In  doing  so  the 
axe  was  swung  around  so  that  it  severely  cut  her 
ankle.  Matilda  screamed  with  pain  but  Lincoln  soon 
had  the  bleeding  stopped  and  the  wound  bound. 
Then  came  the  problem. 

*' Tilda,''  he  exclaimed,  "I  am  astonished  at  you. 
How  could  you  disobey  your  mother?  Now,  what 
are  you  going  to  tell  her?" 


THE  MAKING  OF  A  MAN  37 


*'I'll  tell  her  I  did  it  with  the  axe,'^  she  said  in 
the  midst  of  her  crying.  ''That  will  be  the  truth, 
won't  it  r' 

"Yes,"  replied  the  boy,  ''that's  the  truth  as  far  as 
it  goes,  but  it  is  not  all  of  the  truth.  You  tell  the 
whole  truth  and  trust  your  mother  for  the  rest." 

Tilda  went  home  limping  and  weeping  with  the 
whole  truth,  and  the  good  mother  thought  she  had 
been  punished  enough. 

The  self-possessed  way  in  which  Lincoln  conducted 
himself  is  well  illustrated  in  his  experience  with  the 
boaster  who  was  telling  of  his  horse-race,  and  espe- 
cially endeavoring  to  impress  his  story  upon  the 
youthful  Lincoln. 

Uncle  Jimmy  Larkins,  the  boastful  owner  of  the 
fast  horse,  was  much  of  a  hero  in  the  eyes  of  a  small 
boy  who  grew  up  to  be  Captain  John  Lamar,  the 
man  who  tells  the  story. 

Lincoln  paid  no  attention  to  the  boasting.  Uncle 
Jimmy  did  not  like  this  and  the  Lamar  boy  thought 
it  very  rude  in  Lincoln.  Finally  Uncle  Jimmy  said, 
*'Abe,  I've  got  the  best  horse  in  the  world:  he  won 
that  race  and  never  drew  a  long  breath." 

But  Abe  still  paid  no  attention.  Uncle  Jimmy 
didn't  like  it  some  more  and  the  Lamar  boy  was 
disgusted  that  Lincoln  did  not  give  due  respect  for 
something  so  important. 


38  THE  STOBY  OF  LINCOLN 

"I  say,  Abe,"  repeated  Uncle  Jimmy  emphati- 
cally, ^'I  have  the  best  horse  in  the  world;  after  all 
that  running  he  never  drew  a  long  breath.'* 

Then  Abe  had  to  say  something,  so  he  said,  **Well, 
Uncle  Jimmy,  why  don't  you  tell  us  how  many  short 
breaths  he  took." 

*' Everybody  laughed  and  Uncle  Jimmy  got  all- 
fired  hot,"  says  Captain  Lamar.  **He  spoke  some- 
thing about  fighting  Abe,  and  Abe  said,  *If  you  don't 
shut  up,  I'll  throw  you  into  the  pond,'  and  Uncle 
Jimmy  shut  up." 

Captain  Lamar,  in  concluding  his  comments,  said, 
*'I  was  very  much  hurt  at  the  way  my  hero  was 
treated,  but  I  have  lived  to  change  my  ideas  about 
heroes." 


V.    ltn-coln's  first  dollar 

LiiTCOLN"  enjoyed  the  commonplace  interests  of 
ordinary  life,  and  much  that  we  know  of  him  is  from 
conversations  with  friends  over  the  early  lessons  of 
his  youth.  1 

One  day  while  he  was  president,  as  he  was  talking 
with  Secretary  Seward  over  weighty  affairs  of  state, 


LINCOLN'S  FIRST  DOLLAR  39 

he  suddenly  broke  from  the  subject  they  were  dis- 
cussing and  said,  ^'Seward,  do  you  know  how  I 
earned  my  first  dollar?" 

The  well-to-do  and  rather  aristocratic  Secretary 
of  State  replied  that  he  did  not  know. 

*'It  was  this  way/'  Lincoln  continued.  "I  was 
about  eighteen  years  of  age  and  had  succeeded  in 
raising  enough  produce  to  justify  a  trip  down  the 
Ohio  to  the  markets  at  New  Orleans.  I  made  a  flat- 
boat  big  enough  to  hold  the  barrels  containing  our 
things  and  was  soon  ready  for  loading  up  and  start- 
ing on  our  journey. 

*' There  were  few  landing  places  for  steamers,  and, 
where  passengers  desired  to  get  on  to  one  of  the  pass- 
ing boats,  they  had  to  be  taken  out  into  the  river  in 
order  to  get  aboard. 

*' While  I  was  looking  my  boat  over  to  see  if  any- 
thing more  could  be  done  to  strengthen  it,  two  men 
came  down  to  the  shore  in  a  carriage,  with  their 
trunks,  for  the  purpose  of  boarding  a  passing 
steamer.  They  looked  the  boats  over  and  came  down 
to  me. 

*^  *Who  owns  this  boat?'  they  asked. 

**I  very  proudly  answered,  'I  do.' 

**  'Will  you  take  us  and  our  trunks  out  to  the 
steamer?' 

'I  was  glad  for  a  chance  to  earn  something  and  I 


<<' 


40  TEE  STORY  OF  LINCOLN 

soon  had  them  and  their  trunks  loaded  into  my  boat. 
I  soon  sculled  them  out  to  the  steamer.  They  climbed 
aboard  and  I  lifted  their  trunks  on  deck.  I  expected 
them  to  hand  me  a  couple  of  bits  for  my  work,  but 
both  seemed  to  have  forgotten  their  dues  to  me.  The 
steamer  was  about  to  start,  when  I  called  out  to 
them,  *You  have  forgotten  to  pay  me.' 

^'Each  took  a  silver  half-dollar  and  threw  it  over 
into  the  bottom  of  my  boat.  I  could  scarcely  believe 
my  good  fortune.  That  seems  like  a  little  thing  but 
it  was  one  of  the  most  important  incidents  in  my 
life.  I  could  hardly  believe  that  I  had  been  able  to 
earn,  by  my  own  work,  a  dollar  in  less  than  a  day. 
I  now  knew  that  such  things  could  be  done.  I  was 
a  more  hopeful  and  thoughtful  boy  from  that  time." 

Lincoln  received  eight  dollars  a  month  for  his  trip 
down  the  Ohio  and  Mississippi  from  Indiana,  but  he 
probably  got  much  priceless  value  out  of  it  in  the 
broader  view  of  life  it  gave  him.  He  had  already 
prepared  himself  to  think  on  what  he  saw,  and,  from 
all  attainable  evidence  from  every  side,  to  reach  rea- 
sonable and  justified  conclusions. 

This  voyage  was  comparatively  uneventful  ex- 
cept that  one  night,  after  the  little  boat  crew  of  three 
men  had  sold  their  goods,  they  were  attacked  by 
seven  negroes,  who  came  aboard  intending  to  kill 
and  rob  them.   But,  after  a  lively  fight,  the  a&^ailants 


A  SUPERIOR  MIND  41 


were  driven  off  and  the  boat  was  swung  out  into  the 
river. 

One  cannot  help  thinking  about  what  a  difference 
it  would  have  made  to  the  negro  race  if  those  negroes 
had  killed  the  man  whom  destinj^  had  then  started 
on  the  way  to  make  their  people  free. 


VI.      THE  CHARACTERISTICS  OF  A  SUPERIOR  MIND 

The  boy  who  reads  the  story  of  Lincoln,  desiring 
to  get  real  help  in  building  his  life,  will  find  no  mira- 
cle nor  any  short-cuts  to  get  easily  the  ambitions  of 
life.  Lincoln  did  not  know  the  office  he  wanted  to 
hold,  but  he  knew  the  kind  of  man  he  wanted  to  be 
and  he  worked  unceasingly  to  reach  that  ideal  of 
mind  and  manhood.  In  proportion,  it  is  no  harder 
now  to  know  more  than  others,  in  order  to  be  corre- 
spondingly useful  to  others,  than  it  was  in  Lincoln's 
time. 

Lincoln  said  that  he  went  to  school  by  "littles"  al- 
together not  more  than  a  year,  but  no  one  ever  thinks 
of  him  as  anything  less  than  a  learned  man.  All 
records  show  that  he  was  intellectually  at  home  in 
company  with  any  worldly-wise  men.  It  was  in  the 
prudent  selection  of  interests  nobly  directed  in  hon- 


42  TEE  STORY  OF  LINCOLN 

orable  ways  that  gave  him  world-wisdom  from  the 
most  limited  supply,  while  now  the  multiplication  of 
great  books  has  made  the  diffusion  of  knowledge  al- 
most unlimited  for  anyone  who  seeks  to  be  worth 
while.  But  it  was  in  his  high  moral  nature  where 
was  to  be  found  the  secret  of  his  unwavering  prog- 
ress. Numerous  characteristic  incidents  illustrate 
how  little  he  was  disturbed  by  the  ill-nature  of 
others. 

That  Lincoln  was  above  ^'holding  spite''  or  "bear- 
ing a  grudge"  is  shown  in  his  experience  with  the 
noted  Kentucky  lawyer,  John  Breckenridge. 

There  had  been  a  murder  at  Boonville,  Indiana, 
and  Lincoln  went  to  hear  the  speech  made  to  the 
jury  by  the  defense.  He  had  never  before  heard  a 
learned  and  eloquent  man.  The  powerful  plea  of 
the  silver-tongued  John  Breckenridge  went  through 
the  sensitive  soul  of  Lincoln  like  heavenly  music. 
Forgetting  his  backwoodsman  appearance,  he  rushed 
forward  with  others  at  the  close  of  the  speech  to 
express  his  admiration. 

Breckenridge  was  a  ** gentleman"  of  the  South, 
not  used  to  being  familiarly  addressed  by  anyone 
having  the  appearance  of  being  "poor  white  trash." 
He  gazed  in  insulted  amazement  at  the  presumptu- 
ous youth  and  strode  indignantly  away. 

This  was  probably  the  first  knowledge  Lincoln 


A  SUPERIOR  MIND  43 


had  of  the  artificial  social  barriers  set  up  by  men 
developing  antagonizing  classes.  Here  he  first  met 
the  great  problem  of  the  ages  in  a  land  where  all  are 
born  free  and  equal  before  life  and  law.  It  was  a 
social  partisanship  not  only  contrary  to  common 
sense  and  moral  law,  but  in  violation  of  the  Declara- 
tion of  Independence,  the  Constitution  of  the  United 
States,  and  the  entire  meaning  of  America.  This  is 
the  great  significance  of  Lincoln,  that  his  life  so  un- 
mistakably refuted  so  many  un-American  ideas  of 
society  and  civilization. 

In  1862  this  same  Breckenridge,  now  an  humble 
petitioner  for  presidential  favors,  was  introduced  to 
President  Lincoln,  who  then  completed  his  expres- 
sion of  admiration  for  the  excellent  speech  made  by 
Mr.  Breckenridge  in  the  Indiana  murder  case.  The 
able  lawyer  was  indeed  dumbfounded  and  it  gave 
him  a  new  vision  of  Lincoln,  if  not  of  the  relation- 
ship of  men.  That  equality  of  mind  and  opportu- 
nity which  Lincoln  represented  was  the  master  mean- 
ing of  America,  disclosing  that  in  its  freedom  there 
is  opportunity  for  the  poorest  to  become  the  greatest 
through  human  values  the  most  lasting  and  worth- 
while. 

Lincoln  could  have  satisfied  a  righteous  resent- 
ment against  such  haughty  treatment  toward  the 
poor  as  was  shown  by  Breckenridge  to  him  at  Boon- 


44  TEE  STORY  OF  LINCOLN 

ville,  and  he  could  have  given  a  deserved  rebuke  to 
pride  in  a  land  where  pride  of  that  kind  is  unpa- 
triotic as  well  as  immoral,  but  Lincoln  chose  the  bet- 
ter part.  It  reminds  us  of  the  words  of  Ralph  Waldo 
Emerson,  *' Lincoln's  heart  was  as  large  as  the  world, 
but  nowhere  had  any  room  for  the  memory  of  a 
wrong." 


CHAPTER   IV 

I.      THE  WILDERNESS  AS  THE  GARDEN  OF  POLITICAL 

LIBERTY 

The  pioneer  and  frontiersman  of  early  America 
are  very  strange  beings  when  viewed  from  our  pres- 
ent social  customs,  or  as  studied  from  the  so-called 
refinements  of  modern  interests  and  conveniences, 
but,  no  doubt,  the  problem  is  now  before  us,  which 
shall  be  the  makers  of  America,  the  pioneer  view  of 
freedom  and  right,  or  influence  from  the  present 
methods  of  material  distinctions  and  individual  suc- 
cess. We  may  be  sure  that  whichever  one  of  these 
ideas  gets  first  to  the  heart  of  the  American  boy,  that 
is  the  ideal  that  will  make  of  him  the  resulting  man. 
The  American  boy  loves  to  go  to  the  bottom  of  things 
and  so  the  submarine  idea  of  interests  is  full  of  fan- 
cies. He  likes  to  get  to  the  top  of  things  and  the 
airship  carries  him  away  on  the  wings  of  adventure. 
But  this  all  is  merely  because  he  likes  freedom  and 
conquest.  There  is  a  limit  to  the  submarine  and  the 
airship,  as  there  is  to  all  machinery  ideals,  but  there 

45 


46  TEE  STORY  OF  LINCOLN 

was  no  limit  to  the  frontiersman  and  the  pioneer. 
The  boy  wants  no  limit,  and  there  is  the  same  open- 
ing now  to  be  a  frontiersman  and  a  pioneer  in  hu- 
man values  as  there  ever  was,  provided  they  are  hu- 
man values  and  not  individual  aggrandizement.  The 
only  consideration  is  that  the  scenes  have  changed 
and  the  obstacles  known  as  'Hhings  in  the  way"  are 
different. 

The  pioneer  and  the  frontiersman  were  laboring 
to  achieve  something  far  more  important  than  clear- 
ing away  trees,  killing  wildcats  or  subduing  the  wild 
men  of  the  wilderness.  Such  dangerous  and  exciting 
work  was  but  an  incident  in  the  great  struggle.  They 
were  striving  for  a  safe,  free  and  sufficient  living  for 
family  and  home.  But  far  greater  than  the  economic 
interest  was  the  ideal  interest  of  freedom  from  the 
will  of  overlords.  That  sublime  goal  of  human  en- 
deavor is  probably  no  nearer  the  heart's  desire  now 
than  it  was  then.  Society  is  not  yet  out  of  the  wil- 
derness of  wildcat  schemers  and  wild  men  monopo- 
lists. 

The  American  boy  has  an  immeasurably  greater 
opportunity  to  continue  the  heroic  and  patriotic 
work  of  the  frontiersman  and  pioneer.  The  safety, 
freedom  and  sufficiency  of  America  is  merely  well 
started  on  its  second  period.  The  first  great  epoch 
of  American  humanity  became  symbolized  in  the  life 


SMALL  BEGINNINGS 47 

^  ■  — ^ —    ' 

of  Washington  and  the  second  in  the  life  of  Lincoln. 
If  there  is  a  third  great  symbolic  character,  it  is 
yet  to  come.  The  American  boy  must  feel  the  mean- 
ing combined  in  Washington  and  Lincoln  if  he  is 
to  be  a  pioneer  civilizing,  socially  and  politically,  the 
frontier  of  America  for  a  nobler  world. 


II.      SMALL  BEGINNINGS  IN  PUBLIC  ESTEEM 

The  wilderness  family  was  humble  as  its  needs. 
It  was  as  least  as  good  as  its  neighbors.  One  thing 
we  should  appreciate  as  significant,  in  the  destitu- 
tion of  the  times,  the  Lincoln  family  was  adven- 
turous  and  enterprising  until  it  arrived  for  final  set- 
tlement in  the  richest  soil-regions  of  the  Mississippi 
valley,  and  the  freest  mind-regions  of  political 
America. 

In  the  spring  of  1830,  on  account  of  ill  health  in 
the  neighborhood,  Lincoln's  father  decided  to  move 
from  the  unpromising  forests  of  Indiana  to  the  fer- 
tile prairies  of  Illinois.  Friends  and  relatives  had 
already  preceded  him,  and  had  sent  back  glowing 
accounts  of  the  prairie  lands.  Wlien  the  family  ar- 
rived in  Illinois,  Lincoln  was  probably  as  near  des- 
titute as  ever  in  his  life,  and  he  entered  into  a  con- 


48  TEE  STORY  OF  LINCOLN 

tract  'Ho  split  four  hundred  rails  for  every  yard  of 
brown  jeans  dyed  with  white  walnut  bark  that  would 
make  a  pair  of  trousers. '* 

Lincoln  was  now  past  twenty-one,  and,  it  may  be 
said,  not  until  his  arrival  at  New  Salem  had  he  found 
firm  ground  on  which  to  begin  building  to  some  plan 
of  life.  Undoubtedly,  his  vision  of  the  future  was 
one  of  very  vague  dreams.  That  he  was  adventurous 
and  looked  beyond  his  community  for  the  fulfillment 
of  his  fortunes  is  shown  in  his  effort  at  commercial 
enterprise  with  nothing  as  his  capital.  He  now  ar- 
ranged to  take  a  second  raft  of  home  goods  to  New 
Orleans.  Such  a  venture  required  no  small  amount 
of  courage  and  self-reliance. 

Wide  observation  with  suitable  thinkins:  seems  to 
give  one  prudence  and  steadiness  of  mind  in  emer- 
gencies. In  several  trying  instances  this  proved  to 
be  true  in  Lincoln's  experience,  long  before  the  civi- 
lization of  America  was  depending  upon  his  warm 
heart  and  clear  head.  Manv  such  instances  seem  as 
trivial  as  the  trimmings  of  a  sapling,  but  they  are 
the  perfecting  process  that  makes  possible  the  great 
oak. 

When  his  flatboat  was  finished  at  New  Salem,  it 
was  necessary  to  have  a  canoe  that  was  to  trail  along 
behind  the  boat.  The  canoe  was  made  from  a  dug- 
out log.    When  it  was  shoved  into  the  booming;  San- 


SMALL  BEGINNINGS  49 

gamon  river,  his  two  friends,  John  Seamon  and  Wal- 
ter Carmen,  sprang  into  it  for  the  first  ride,  but 
the  stream  was  too  swift  for  them.  The  current  be- 
gan to  sweep  them  away  down  stream. 

"Head  up  stream,"  Lincoln  shouted,  "and  work 
back  to  shore/' 

But  they  could  not  beat  the  rush  of  water.  Near- 
ing  the  wreck  of  an  old  flatboat,  they  tried  to  pull 
the  canoe  in  among  the  timbers  and  hold  themselves 
fast.  Seamon  caught  hold  of  a  stanchion  as  they 
came  by  and  the  canoe  was  overturned,  leaving  Sea- 
mon clinging  to  the  timber  and  Carmon  being  borne 
down  stream,  clinging  to  the  slippery  log. 

Lincoln  yelled  for  Carmon  to  swim  for  the 
branches  of  an  elm  tree  that  swung  in  the  high  water 
near  the  shore.  Carmon  did  this.  Lincoln  then 
called  to  Seamon  to  swim  for  the  tree  with  Carmon 
and  they  could  be  rescued  together. 

It  was  a  very  cold  April  day  and  the  men  were  in 
danger  of  becoming  too  benumbed  to  hold  on.  By 
this  time  the  whole  village  of  New  Salem  was  gath- 
ered at  the  bank. 

Lincoln  procured  a  rope,  which  he  fastened  to  a 
large  log.  The  log  was  pushed  into  the  water  and  a 
venturesome  young  fellow  named  Jim  Darrell  be- 
strode the  log  that  was  to  be  floated  down  stream  to 
the  rescue. 


50  THE  STORY  OF  LINCOLN 

The  log  went  straight  to  the  tree  all  right,  but  the 
young  man  was  too  eager  to  help  his  fellows.  In 
the  struggles  the  log  was  turned  and  so  caught  in 
the  current  that  it  was  swept  away  from  them  and 
there  were  now  three  to  be  rescued  from  the  tree. 

The  log  was  towed  back.  Lincoln  tied  another 
rope  to  it,  and  held  the  end  of  the  rope  in  his  hand. 
He  then  mounted  the  log  to  take  the  dangerous  ride 
himself.  As  the  log  came  into  the  tree,  he  threw  the 
rope  around  a  limb  and  held  fast.  In  another  min- 
ute all  three  of  the  shipwrecked  men  were  safely 
astride  the  log.  He  then  told  the  people  to  let  go 
the  guiding  rope.  The  well-calculated  result  was 
that  the  current  against  the  log,  and  the  pull  on  the 
rope  fastened  to  the  limb,  swung  them  safely  around 
to  the  shore. 

Strange  and  foreign  as  it  may  seem,  numerous 
clear-headed  exploits  like  this  made  his  neighbors  be- 
lieve in  him.  Such  belief  encouraged  him  to  believe 
in  himself,  and,  trivial  as  the  analogy  may  seem,  and 
unworthy  as  the  comparison  might  be,  it  doubtless 
had  much  to  do  in  strengthening  his  ambition  to  sur- 
pass his  surroundings  and  gain  the  larger  fields  of 
service.  It  is  said  that  no  one  ever  learned  faster 
in  any  situation  than  Lincoln.  He  never  *4ost  his 
head"  in  any  whirl  of  events,  and  always  before  the 
crisis  arrived  he  was  facing  it  as  master. 


Ir^^sr^ 


•4:1 
bfl 


72 
+^ 

o 
o 

■  -H 

o 


o 
o 


SMALL  BEGINNINGS  51 


Lincoln's  raft  from  New  Salem  arrived  in  New 
Orleans  in  May,  1831.  At  that  time  it  seemed  as  if 
all  the  adventurers  in  the  world  had  gathered  there, 
and  it  was  probably  the  wickedest  city  on  earth.  It 
was  the  gathering  place  of  pirates,  robbers  and  wild 
boatmen  of  the  river  and  gulf. 

The  city  in  its  wild  prosperity  and  barbarity  must 
have  made  a  strong  impression  on  Lincoln.  Worst 
of  all  was  its  hideous  slave  market.  Here  men  and 
women  were  herded  together  like  animals  and  sold 
like  cattle.  Here  he  saw  negro  girls,  many  of  them 
nearly  white,  treated  like  beasts.  At  the  auctioning 
off  of  a  mulatto  girl  he  turned  away  from  the  re- 
volting spectacle,  saying  to  his  companions,  *'Boys, 
let's  get  away  from  this.  If  I  ever  get  a  chance 
to  hit  that  thing  (meaning  slavery),  I'll  hit  it  hard." 

And  to  him  was  given  the  chance,  through  the  ter- 
rible ordeal  of  civil  war,  to  drive  that  shame  forever 
from  the  land  of  freedom.  Only  in  the  light  of  twen- 
tieth century  developments  can  we  look  back  and  see 
what  a  desperate  condition  America  would  be  in  if 
the  Southern  half  of  the  IJnited  States  had  succeeded 
in  becoming  a  separate  slave-nation.  Great  evils 
were  involved  and  great  wrongs  had  to  be  worked 
out  from  among  the  passions  and  prejudice  of  the 
times,  but  we  can  now  all  believe,  no  matter  how 
meritorious  was  state  patriotism,  or  how  sincere  the 


52  THE  STORY  OF  LINCOLN 

faith  of  the  people,  or  how  correct  their  interpre- 
tation of  the  original  Union,  that  we  have  a  greater 
America,  destined  to  take  a  better  part  in  making 
a  nobler  civilization  for  a  more  progressive  world. 


III.      TESTS  OF  CHARACTER  ON"  THE  LAWLESS  FRONTIER 

There  were  gangs  of  good-natured  rowdies,  and 
there  were  roughhouse  communities  in  pioneer  days. 

Such  a  community  and  such  a  gang  was  in  the 
neighborhood  of  New  Salem,  known  as  Clary's 
Grove  and  the  Clary  Grove  Boys.  They  delighted 
in  being  rough  and  coarse,  though,  it  is  said,  to  their 
credit,  that  they  were  generous  and  most  faithful 
f  ri  P"*^  '^ '"' 

Denton  Offutt  for  some  reason  liked  to  boast  to 
them  of  his  hired  man.  He  seemed  to  believe  that  it 
shed  glory  on  himself  as  an  employer.  He  told  the 
Clarv  Bovs  that  his  man  could  lift  more,  throw  far- 
ther,  run  faster,  jump  higher  and  wrestle  better 
than  any  man  in  Sangamon  County.  This  hurt  the 
Clary  boys'  sense  of  superiority.  They  decided  to 
test  it  out.  Accordingly,  they  appointed  Jack  Arm- 
strong as  their  best  man  to  prove  their  right  to  the 
championship. 

Lincoln  objected  to  the  "tussle  and  scuffle"  ideas 


^1 


I 


♦ 


TESTS  OF  CHARACTER 53 

of  the  time,  he  disbelieved  in  the  honors  won  by 
**wooling  and  pulling/'  but  the  age  of  "fist-and- 
skuir'  duels  was  not  yet  at  an  end,  and  the  question 
of  best  man  had  to  be  tried  out. 

Clary's  Grove  came  one  day  to  back  their  man 
as  representative  of  themselves,  and  New  Salem 
turned  out  to  back  the  other.  It  was  to  be  "catch- 
as-catch-can  and  the  best  man  wins.'' 

The  task  to  represent  New  Salem  against  the 
neighboring  rowdy dom  was  not  an  easy  one.  But 
such  is  human  nature  that  who  can  say  what  effect 
it  would  have  had  on  Lincoln's  future  if  he  had  been 
beaten  and  bullied  over  in  that  fight.  Perhaps  it 
shows  how  needful  it  is  to  do  well  everything  at  hand 
to  be  done,  because  we  do  not  know  how  it  may  be 
part  of  our  way  to  the  unknowable  future. 

The  champions  came  together  according  to  the 
'*fair  play"  of  the  time.  They  clinched  and  swayed, 
those  two  strong  men,  but  neither  could  be  moved 
from  his  feet.  Each  side  was  yelling  itself  hoarse, 
as  the  one  who  was  to  be  the  greatest  of  Americans 
strove  with  the  one  who  would  long  ago  be  as  for- 
gotten as  his  dust,  except  for  the  struggle  he  made 
and  for  the  conquest. 

Feeling  himself  being  defeated,  one  of  them  did 
not  play  the  game  fair.  It  was  not  Lincoln.  The 
champion  of  the  Clary  gang  played  a  trick,  and 


54  THE  STORY  OF  LINCOLN 

Lincoln  caught  him  by  the  throat,  holding  him  out 
at  arm's  length,  where  he  could  only  kick,  and  squirm 
and  beat  the  air,  but  could  do  nothing  against  that 
long,  strong  right  arm.  The  Clary  gang  rushed  to 
the  rescue,  and  it  looked  as  if  he  would  have  to  fight 
them  all  when  Armstrong  declared  that  he  had 
enough,  and  that  Lincoln  was  the  *'best  fellow  that 
ever  broke  into  camp/' 

Not  long  after  this  the  Clary  gang  elected  Lin- 
coln as  Captain  of  their  sports  and  henceforth  were 
among  his  most  faithful  friends.  The  fact  that  Lin- 
coln could  hold  the  political  support  and  good-will 
of  both  the  best  and  the  worst  shows  that  there  was 
a  reliability  in  his  character  to  which  they  could  to- 
gether safely  give  allegiance. 

The  friendship  of  Jack  Armstrong  and  his  family, 
after  the  fight,  never  swerved,  and  the  time  came 
when  Lincoln  repaid  their  kindness  and  their  simple 
loyalty  in  a  great  way.  Years  afterward,  when  Lin- 
coln had  become  a  renowned  lawyer.  Jack  Arm- 
strong's son  was  accused  of  murder.  They  went  for 
Lincoln  and  Lincoln  came.  He  studied  the  case  and 
became  convinced  that  the  son  of  his  old  friend  was 
innocent. 

There  had  been  a  quarrel  among  some  young  men 
one  night  near  an  out-of-door  camp  meeting,  and 
one  had  been  stabbed  to  death. 


TESTS  OF  CHARACTER  55 


Young  Armstrong  was  arrested  on  the  testimony 
of  one  who  claimed  to  have  seen  the  blow  struck  by 
the  light  of  the  moon. 

Lincoln  made  the  witness  repeat  his  testimony 
about  the  moon  and  then  began  his  address  to  the 
jury.  He  told  of  his  relations  to  the  prisoner's 
father,  of  the  kindness  of  the  mother,  and  how  he 
had  played  with  the  boy  as  a  child.  Then  he  said 
that  he  was  not  there  as  paid  attorney  but  as  a  friend 
of  the  family.  With  that  explanation,  he  reviewed 
the  testimony  showing  that  all  the  evidence  depended 
on  what  the  witness  had  seen  by  the  light  of  the 
moon.  At  this  point  he  produced  an  almanac  show- 
ing that  there  was  no  moon  on  the  night  of  the  mur- 
der. The  jury  took  only  a  very  short  consultation 
to  bring  in  a  verdict  of  ^*Not  Guilty.'' 

This  story  has  often  been  told  in  which  the  alma- 
nac is  represented  as  having  been  an  old  one,  thus 
winning  the  case  by  a  trick  of  falsehood,  but  inves- 
tigation has  proven  this  to  be  imtrue,  accordingly 
supporting  the  statement  that  Lincoln  never  used 
such  tactics  to  win  a  case. 

We  have  learned  that  no  character  in  history  can 
be  understood  except  in  relation  to  its  surroundings. 
Otherwise,  Lincoln's  fight  with  the  backwoods'  ruf- 
fians might  now  seem  vulgar  and  lawless,  but  it  was 
in  truth  a  powerful  factor  in  building  his  life  for 


56  TEE  STOEY  OF  LINCOLN 

its  supreme  service.  It  not  only  helped  to  establish 
his  own  conscious  integrity,  but  it  was  planting  re- 
spect for  him  among  his  neighbors,  which  was  as 
necessary  for  his  growth  of  reputation  as  anything 
at  any  time  in  his  career.  The  time  when  a  boy  can 
afford  not  "to  care  what  people  think"  depends  very 
much  not  only  upon  the  boy  and  the  people,  but  also 
upon  what  is  meant  by  the  "care"  and  the  "think." 


IV.      THE  PIONEER  MISSIONARY  OF  HUMANITY 

The  pioneer  West  was  indeed  uncouth,  but  there 
were  many  noteworthy  redeeming  features  in  the 
zeal  of  the  better  classes  for  ideal  interests.  Doubt- 
less, Lincoln  was  often  inspired  by  such  a  fair  view 
of  humanity.  Many  an  incident  is  told  of  the  unsel- 
fish devotion  among  the  people  with  whom  Lincoln 
lived. 

The  zeal  in  having  a  mission  in  those  days  was 
something  that  is  almost  unimaginable  in  these  days. 
It  is  illustrated  by  the  following  incident  told  by  Mil- 
burn  of  the  useful  men  of  those  days  in  touch  with 
the  Lincoln  life. 

A  young  travelling  preacher,  and  the  preachers  of 
that  period  in  those  regions  were  really  all  travel- 


PIONEER  MISSIONARY  OF  HUMANITY    57 

ling  if  they  were  preachers,  for  they  had  no  abiding 
place,  was  so  much  beloved  by  a  man  who  had  ac- 
quired a  large  amount  of  land,  that  the  man  made 
the  young  preacher  the  present  of  a  deed  to  half  a 
section  of  land.  The  young  man,  being  destitute,  was 
much  rejoiced  to  receive  the  gift  of  three  hundred 
and  twenty  acres  of  good  prairie  soil.  He  went  away 
with  a  grateful  heart  toward  his  generous  benefactor. 
Three  months  later  he  returned,  and,  as  he  greeted 
the  generous  friend  at  the  door,  he  handed  back  the 
deed,  saying,  *'Here,  sir,  I  want  you  to  take  back 
your  title-deed." 

^'What's  the  matter,"  asked  the  surprised  friend. 
*^ Anything  wrong  with  it?" 

**No,"  replied  the  young  man,  as  if  somewhat 
ashamed  to  give  his  reason. 

** Isn't  the  land  good  enough?" 

"Good  as  any  in  the  state." 

**Are  you  afraid  it  is  a  sickly  place?" 

"Healthy  as  anywhere." 

"Do  you  think  I  am  sorry  I  gave  it  to  you?" 

"I  haven't  the  slightest  reason  to  doubt  your 
whole-hearted  generosity." 

"Then  why  in  the  thunder  don't  you  keep  it?"  in- 
quired the  dumbfounded  benefactor. 

"Well,  sir,  if  I  must  tell  you,"  said  the  young 
preacher,  "you  know  I  am  very  fond  of  singing, 


58  TEE  STORY  OF  LINCOLN 


and  there's  one  hymn  in  my  book,  which  has  been 
one  of  my  greatest  comforts  in  life,  and  it  is  not  so 
any  more.  I  have  lost  the  joy  of  singing  it,  and  it 
has  killed  so  much  other  joy  that  I  can  no  longer 
endure  the  privation.  I  will  sing  you  one  verse/' 
Then  he  sang : 

^^No  foot  of  land  do  I  possess, 
No  cottage  in  the  wilderness ; 
A  poor  wayfaring  man. 
I  lodge  awhile  in  tents  below. 
And  gladly  wander  to  and  fro. 
Till  I  my  Canaan  gain ; 
There  is  my  house  and  portion  fair, 
My  treasure  and  my  heart  are  there, 
And  my  abiding  home.'' 

** Please  take  your  title-deed,"  he  exclaimed.  "I 
want  to  have  the  joy  I  used  to  have  in  singing  that  ; 
song.  I'd  rather  sing  it  with  a  clear  conscience  than  I 
to  own  America."  | 

It  was  among  such  people  sacrificing  themselves 
for  humanity  that  Lincoln  found  his  great  inspira- 
tion from  the  sordid  and  mean  that  are  ever  to  be 
found  muckraking  at  the  bottom.  The  family  may 
be  in  a  good  home,  safe  for  its  children,  but  the  good 
home  must  be  in  a  good  community  or  they  are  not 


EXPERIENCES  IN  THE  INDIAN  WAR    59 

safe.  In  fact,  we  cannot  be  sure  of  a  good  home  un- 
less its  good  community  is  in  a  good  world.  Good 
people  in  a  good  community  are  of  priceless  help  to 
a  good  mother  bringing  up  a  good  boy,  with  the  big- 
gest meaning  of  life  in  the  word  good. 


V.      EXPERIENCES  IN  THE  INDIAN"  WAR 

Great  events  probably  have  less  effect  in  shaping 
one 's  life  than  the  little  incidents  that  compose  them. 
It  seems  so  with  Lincoln. 

The  confidence  and  appreciation  of  his  friends 
(note  that  it  was  not  his  self-seeking  aggressiveness) 
caused  him  to  believe  that  he  should  try  to  become 
their  representative  in  the  state  legislature.  He  was 
in  the  midst  of  this,  his  first  political  campaign, 
which  was  at  the  age  of  twenty-three,  when  Black 
Hawk,  the  Indian  warrior,  crossed  the  Mississippi 
River,  April  6,  1832,  with  his  five  hundred  followers 
and  began  what  is  known  as  the  Black  Hawk  War. 

The  white  settlers  had  gradually  occupied  the  In- 
dians' land,  and  the  government  by  treaties  had 
caused  the  Indians  to  be  removed  to  territory  west 
of  the  Mississippi.  Black  Hawk,  a  leader  of  the 
Sacs  and  Foxes,  believed  the  Indians  to  be  mistreated 


60  THE  STOBY  OF  LINCOLN 

and  so  resolved  to  drive  the  white  settlers  back  to 
the  treaty  line. 

^'My  reason  teaches  me/'  he  wrote  to  the  govern- 
ment, '^that  land  cannot  be  sold.  The  Great  Spirit 
gave  it  to  his  children  to  live  upon,  and  cultivate, 
as  far  as  is  necessary  for  their  living;  and  so  long 
as  they  occupy  and  cultivate  it  they  have  a  right  to 
the  soil,  but,  if  they  willingly  leave  it,  then  any  other 
people  have  a  right  to  settle  on  it.  Nothing  can  be 
sold  but  such  things  as  can  be  carried  away.'' 

There  are  now  several  social  theories  based  on  this 
idea  that  the  earth  belongs  to  the  people  who  use  it. 
The  theory  of  right  things  governs  the  minds  of  all 
who  think,  even  of  the  wild  men  in  the  wilderness. 

When  the  news  arrived  that  the  Indians  had  de- 
clared war  against  the  whites,  with  the  appeal  from 
Governor  Reynolds  for  volunteers,  Lincoln  dropped 
his  canvass  for  the  legislature  in  order  to  enlist  for 
the  defense  of  his  country. 

The  man-making  incident  in  this  important  event 
was  Lincoln's  election  as  captain  of  his  home  com- 
pany. If  there  had  been  one  thing  which  Lincoln 
had  not  studied,  that  was  the  tactics  of  a  soldier. 
He  knew  nothing  about  military  orders,  and  yet  the 
time  was  coming,  all  too  soon,  when  he  was  to  be  chief 
of  the  greatest  military  organization  then  in  the 
world. 


I 


EXPERIENCES  IN  THE  INDIAN  WAR    61 


A  sawmill  owner  named  Kilpatrick  was  pushing 
himself  forward  to  be  made  captain.  This  man  owed 
Lincoln  two  dollars  for  work  and  would  not  pay  it. 

Lincoln  got  an  idea  and  he  said  to  his  friend 
Greene,  ^'Bill,  I  believe  I  can  now  make  Kilpatrick 
pay  that  two  dollars  he  owes  me.  I'll  run  against 
him  for  captain. '^ 

When  it  came  to  the  vote,  the  two  candidates  stood 
out  in  the  open,  and  the  men  were  told  to  stand  up 
by  the  man  they  wanted  to  be  captain.  More  than 
three-fourths  of  them  gathered  around  Lincoln,  and 
he  became  Captain  Lincoln.  He  tells  us  himself 
that  he  never  had  any  success  in  life  which  gave  him 
more  satisfaction.  It  was  a  vote  of  confidence  in 
the  reality  of  a  man. 

In  telling  of  his  ignorance  of  military  command,  he 
says  that  he  was  marching  his  company  across  a 
field  when  they  came  to  a  gate.  *^I  could  not  for 
the  life  of  me  remember  the  proper  word  of  com- 
mand for  getting  my  company  endwise,  so  that  the 
line  could  get  through  the  gate;  so,  as  we  came  up 
to  the  gate,  I  shouted,  'This  company  is  dismissed 
for  two  minutes,  when  it  will  fall  in  again  on  the 
other  side  of  the  gate.'  " 

He  was  also  totally  unfamiliar  with  camp  disci- 
pline, and  he  once  had  his  sword  taken  from  him  for 
shooting  off  his  rifle  within  limits.    At  another  time 


62  THE  STORY  OF  LINCOLN 


I 
I 


his  company  stole  some  whisky,  and,  during  the 
night,  became  so  drunli  that  they  could  not  fall  in 
line  the  next  morning.  For  this  neglect  of  disci- 
pline Lincoln  had  to  wear  a  wooden  sword  for  two 
days.  But  his  men  respected  him  and  were  his  de- 
voted friends.  They  knew  he  meant  what  he  said, 
and  whatever  they  saw  of  him  was  the  truth. 

His  firmness  in  the  right  ^*as  God  gives  us  to  see 
the  right,"  even  against  his  associates,  is  illustrated 
in  the  incident  of  saving  an  Indian's  life.  ^j 

The  frontiersman's  standard  of  morality  toward 
an  Indian  was  that  the  only  good  Indian  is  a  dead 
Indian. 

One  day  an  Indian  was  brought  into  camp.  He 
was  trying  to  cross  the  country  and  return  to  his 
tribe.  To  do  this  was  his  privilege  and  General  Cass 
had  given  him  an  order  of  safe  conduct.  But  the 
frontiersmen  had  come  out  to  kill  Indians  and  this 
was  their  first  chance.  Lincoln  stood  up  by  the  side 
of  the  red  man,  and  boldly  took  the  Indian's  part. 
Some  rebellious  ones  determined  to  take  the  Indian 
and  kill  him,  even  if  they  had  to  fight  Lincoln  to  do 
it.  But  Lincoln  stood  up  by  the  side  of  the  red  man 
and  gave  them  to  understand  that  it  could  be  done 
only  over  his  dead  body.  They  knew  that  he  meant 
it.  The  result  was  that  the  Indian  was  allowed  to 
go  his  way,  and  the  resolute  Captain  never  lost  a 


LIFE-MAKING  DECISIONS  63 

friend  for  it.  Many  an  act  of  mercy  in  keeping  with 
this  one  has  made  his  name  beloved  throughout  the 
earth.  His  soldiering  lasted  three  months,  but  it 
doubtless  gave  him  many  ideas  for  use  in  the  greater 
events  of  after  years. 


VI.      UFE-MAKING  DECISIONS 

At  the  close  of  his  unsuccessful  canvass,  in  August 
of  1832,  for  the  Illinois  Assembly,  he  was  out  of  any- 
thing to  do,  and  he  seriously  considered  the  advice 
of  his  friends  to  become  a  blacksmith.  This  was  a 
suitable  trade  for  him,  they  said,  because  he  was  so 
strong  armed.  But  this  work  gave  him  no  leisure 
for  study  and  he  decided  against  it.  The  only  thing 
he  knew  was  store-keeping  and  he  decided  to  buy  a 
store.  The  opportunity  was  open  for  him  to  buy  a 
half  interest  with  William  Berry  and  he  did  so,  giv- 
ing notes  for  the  goods.  Business  prospered  rap- 
idly while  the  enthusiasm  was  on,  but  Berry  loved 
whisky  as  much  as  Lincoln  loved  books,  and  between 
the  one  who  squandered  time  and  money  on  liquor, 
and  the  one  who  neglected  business  for  books,  there 
could  not  be  expected  any  results  more  natural  than 
that  business  should  finally  go  to  pieces. 

It  was  in  the  midst  of  these  conditions  that  Berry 


64  TEE  STORY  OF  LINCOLN 

>  -—  '  ■  ■■■        ■  ■  , . — . — 

took  out  a  tavern  license  for  the  firm.  It  is  under-  f 
stood  that  this  was  not  for  the  purpose  of  keeping  a 
liquor  grocery,  but  to  enable  them  to  sell  the  stock 
on  hand  that  had  come  to  them  from  the  stores  they 
had  bought  out,  and  probably  to  get  the  much  needed 
money  to  conduct  their  business.  In  those  days  a 
store  could  get  no  business  if  it  had  no  liquor  to 
sell.  The  personal  morality  of  a  thing  must  be  con- 
sidered in  relation  to  the  times.  The  selling  of  liquor 
by  the  quart  was  then  as  unquestioned  propriety  as 
selling  potatoes  or  flour.  Liquor  was  sold  in  all  gro- 
cery stores  as  a  part  of  the  general  business  of  the 
store  the  same  as  tobacco  or  sugar. 

But  it  should  be  noted  that  the  license  was  taken 
out  in  the  name  of  Berry  and  that  Lincoln's  name 
was  signed  by  some  other  person  to  the  bond. 

Among  the  characteristic  incidents  told  of  Lincoln 
during  this  period  is  that  of  his  encounter  with  a 
swaggering  stranger  who  came  into  the  store  and 
used  his  choicest  oaths  in  the  presence  of  some 
women.  Lincoln  asked  him  to  stop  but  he  paid  no 
attention.  At  the  second  request,  more  firmly  given, 
he  declared  that  nobody  could  dictate  his  style  of  lan- 
guage in  a  free  country. 

**Well,''  said  Lincoln,  as  the  newcomer  continued 
swearing,  ''if  you  must  be  whipped,  I  suppose  I 
might  as  well  whip  you  as  any  other  man." 


LIFE-MAKING  DECISIONS  65 


The  man  believed  he  could  ''whip''  Lincoln  and 
vindicate  the  freedom  of  speech  and  the  rights  of 
man.  According  to  his  theory,  right  was  on  his  side, 
and  it  could  be  vindicated  by  battle.  Lincoln's  more 
concrete  object  was  to  prevent  swearing  in  the  pres- 
ence of  women.  So  they  went  outside  to  begin  the 
war.  The  obliging  persons  present  formed  a  ring 
around  the  combatants  to  insure  fair  play,  and  the 
freedom  of  decency  began  its  war  with  the  freedom 
of  speech,  according  to  the  ancient  wager  of  battle. 

New  Salem  had  little  doubt  about  which  would 
win.  In  a  minute  Lincoln  was  rubbing  smartweed 
into  the  eyes  of  the  freedom  of  speech,  and  the  rights 
of  man  was  bellowing  for  mercy. 

New  Salem  was  at  bottom  composed  of  real  men 
and  they  liked  that  sort  of  thing.  The  champion  of 
genuine  human  freedom  and  real  rights  in  New  Sa- 
lem was  building  his  unknown  way  to  be  the  cham- 
pion of  the  same  fundamental  human  interests  in  the 
capital  of  his  nation. 

It  is  very  likely  that  those  who  feel  little  think 
even  less,  because  those  wideawake  enough  to  think 
much  must  have  imagination,  which  is  the  mother  of 
sympathy.  Many  stories  are  told  of  Lincoln's  deep 
feeling  of  sympathy  for  those  about  him,  and  espe- 
cially he  was  the  friend  who  believed  in  decency  and 
loved  moral  order. 


66  THE  STORY  OF  LINCOLN 

^* Honest  Abe"  is  a  name  that  would  be  generally 
regarded  now  as  a  "nickname"  expressing  a  kind 
of  good-natured  contempt.  Justice  now  wades  deep 
streams  in  the  adjustments  of  big  business.  But 
Abraham  Lincoln  had  a  musical  soul  and  the  color 
harmonj^  of  a  great  scenic  artist  for  humanity.  He 
might  not  have  an  eye  for  fitness  in  clothes  or  the 
idealism  of  pretty  things,  but  his  soul  was  in  pain 
over  any  mistreatment  of  human  beings.  He  could 
not  endure  the  discordant  note  in  any  dishonest 
transaction,  and  he  could  not  stand  for  any  blur  on 
the  canvas  in  the  scenes  of  mercy  and  justice.  Like 
great  standards  of  right-life  waving  in  the  breeze 
were  many  acts  of  Lincoln  endearing  him  to  the  con- 
fidence of  his  people.  As  an  illustration  may  be  men- 
tioned the  incident  of  his  taking  six  and  a  quarter 
cents  too  much  from  a  customer.  He  walked  three 
miles  in  the  evening  after  the  store  closed,  in  order 
to  restore  the  money.  Another  time  he  weighed  out 
half  a  pound  of  tea  and  afterward  discovered  that 
a  four-ounce  weight  had  been  on  the  scales.  He 
weighed  out  the  extra  four  ounces  and  closed  the 
store  so  he  could  promptly  deliver  the  remainder  of 
the  tea.  This  was  probably  poor  business,  but  it 
meant  much  for  human  liberty  that  the  people  be- 
lieved in  him,  and  that  he  always  made  good  in  ful- 
fillment of  that  belief. 


LIFE-MAKING  DECISIONS  67 


Any  one  doing  these  things  now  would  very  likely; 
be  playing  the  game  of  getting  a  reputation  for  hon- 
esty as  the  best  policy  for  the  sake  of  the  policy,  and 
if  he  required  such  strictness  of  dealing  with  him- 
self he  would  be  regarded  merely  as  a  miser.  Only 
bankers,  the  post  office  and  big  business  are  expected 
legitimately  to  hunt  for  the  lost  cent  all  night  be- 
fore the  account  books  can  be  closed.  But  this  was 
Lincoln  ^s  whole  life  and  his  neighbors  knew  it. 
They  told  other  people  that  he  was  a  man  to  be 
trusted  until  at  last  the  whole  world  knew  it,  and 
the  historians  recorded  it  among  the  imperishable 
records  of  civilization. 

A  nation  is  rich  as  it  has  such  ideals  of  character, 
especially  in  this  kind  striving  on  from  the  lowliest 
to  the  highest,  through  the  destitution  and  discour- 
agement that  may  drag  down  the  aspiring  dream  of 
better  life. 

Robert  Browning  appreciates  the  honored  names 
when  he  says, 

**A  nation  is  but  an  attempt  of  many. 
To  rise  to  the  completer  life  of  one ; 
And  they  who  live  as  models  for  the  mass 
Are  simply  of  more  value  than  they  all." 


CHAPTER  V 

I.      BUSIITESS   NOT    HARMONIOUS   WITH   THE   STRUGGLE 

FOR  LEARlSriNG 

The  people  believed  in  Lincoln  and  that  made  him 
believe  in  himself,  but  they  would  never  have  be- 
lieved in  him  if  they  had  not  seen  the  unchanging 
conduct  that  is  necessary  for  human  confidence.  If 
the  people  had  not  believed  in  him  he  would  never 
have  had  the  confidence  to  develop  his  way  of  life, 
able  at  last  to  face  the  world-making  problems  of  the 
great  Civil  War,  and  thus  to  hold  to  a  course  of  con- 
duct, which  he  knew  to  be  right,  against  the  hisses, 
slander  and  desperate  intrigue  of  men  and  masses, 
who  knew  that  he  was  making  a  civilization  in  Amer- 
ica contrary  to  their  mercenary  interests  and  their 
customary  moral  standards. 

Business  men  are  devoted  to  the  business  game. 
Otherwise  the  play  is  poor  business.  So,  the  man 
whose  happiness  was  in  learning  could  not  be  a  busi- 
ness man.  The  store  did  not  pay.  As  Lincoln  was 
compelled  to  earn  his  living  at  other  work,  the  man- 

68 


BUSINESS  NOT  HARMONIOUS         69 

agement  of  the  store  was  entirely  in  the  hands  of 
Berry,  with  whom  it  went  from  bad  to  worse  until 
two  brothers  offered  to  buy  out  the  business.  The 
store  was  sold,  not  for  cash,  but  for  notes  covering 
the  amount. 

When  the  notes  became  due,  the  two  brothers  fled. 
The  store  was  closed  by  the  creditors,  the  goods  were 
auctioned  off,  and  a  heavy  remaining  debt  was 
against  Berry  and  Lincoln.  Soon  after  this  Berry 
died  and  all  +he  debt  was  against  Lincoln.  Now  was 
the  time  for  him  ''to  skip  the  country,''  as  was  the 
custom.  But  he  did  not  ''clear  out"  and  therewith 
beat  his  creditors  out  of  the  debt  of  eleven  hundred 
dollars. 

Lincoln  told  a  friend  that  this  debt,  in  many  ways 
an  unjust  one,  because  he  did  not  make  it,  was  "the 
greatest  obstacle  I  ever  met  in  life.  I  had  no  way 
of  speculating,  and  could  not  earn  money,  except  by 
labor;  and  to  earn  by  labor  eleven  hundred  dollars, 
besides  the  interest  and  my  living,  seemed  the  work 
of  a  lifetime."  It  did,  indeed,  take  all  he  could  earn 
above  his  living  for  seventeen  years.  But  he  did  it. 
He  paid  the  debt  in  full.  The  moral  system  in  his 
soul  was  never  sold  for  the  mess  of  pottage  in  any 
temporary  distress.  "To  thyself  be  true,"  says 
Shakespeare,  "and  it  follows,  as  the  night  the  day, 
thou  canst  not  be  false  to  any  man."    Many  think 


70  THE  STORY  OF  LINCOLN 

themselves  to  be  an  emotion,  or  a  tired  feeling,  or  a 
fool  ambition,  or  a  will  to  do  something,  but  it  is 
not  so.  My  self  is  a  system,  an  identity,  an  integ- 
rity, a  consistency,  that  has  no  hour,  or  day,  or  year, 
but  at  least  a  life  time. 

One  of  Lincoln's  creditors,  who  was  like  Shylock, 
demanded  his  exact  dues  the  exact  time  they  were 
due.  He  sued  Lincoln  and  got  judgment,  so  that 
the  surveyor's  tools,  and  everything*  by  which  he 
made  his  living  were  seized  and  put  up  for  sale  by 
auction. 

Lincoln's  friends  gathered  at  the  sale  without  say- 
ing anything  about  what  they  would  or  would  not 
do.  The  demand  was  for  one  hundred  and  twenty 
dollars.  Very  few  could  spare  any  such  sum.  But 
the  things,  horse,  saddle,  surveying  instruments,  etc., 
were  all  bought  in  by  James  Short,  a  farmer  living 
on  Sand  Ridge,  just  north  of  New  Salem.  Then  this 
farmer  turned  them  all  over  to  Lincoln.  That  be- 
nevolent farmer  did  not  know  what  he  was  doing 
for  his  country  when  he  did  that,  but  it  was  a  great 
deed. 

A  few  years  later  James  Short  moved  out  to  Cali- 
fornia. For  some  reason  he  had  lost  most  of  his 
property  and  had  become  a  poor  man.  When  Lin- 
coln became  president  he  heard  of  the  distress  *' Un- 
cle Jimmy"  was  in  and  one  day  the  old  man  received 


MAKING  A  LIVING 71 

a  letter  from  Washington.  Opening  it,  he  found  an 
appointment  from  Lincoln  as  commissioner  to  the 
Indians. 


n.      MAKING  A  LIYING  AITD  LEARNING  THE  MEANING  OF 

UTE 

Lincoln  belonged  to  the  Whig  political  party,  but 
he  was  appointed  postmaster  by  the  Democratic  ad- 
ministration in  1833.  That  there  was  not  much  mail 
may  be  inferred  from  the  fact  that  it  would  cost 
twenty-five  cents,  in  those  scarce  times,  to  send  a 
letter  or  the  ordinary  magazine  of  today  from  any 
distance  around  of  four  hundred  miles.  His  kindli- 
ness of  spirit  is  well  illustrated  in  the  fact  that  he 
delivered  most  of  the  mail  himself,  knowing  how 
precious  it  was  to  the  person  addressed. 

As  postmaster,  Lincoln  had  to  make  an  accounting 
to  the  government  for  its  share  of  money  received, 
and  this  was  to  be  receipted  for  by  the  postoffice 
agent.  There  was  much  chance  for  graft,  and  espe- 
cially so  in  this  case,  as  the  agent  to  settle  the  busi- 
ness did  not  appear.  It  was  not  till  Lincoln  became 
a  practicing  lawyer  in  Springfield  that  the  agent 


72  THE  STORY  OF  LINCOLN 


called  upon  him  to  close  up  his  accounts  as  post- 
master at  New  Salem. 

The  postoffice  inspector  produced  a  claim  for 
seventeen  dollars.  Lincoln  paused  a  moment  as  if 
perplexed  to  remember  just  what  it  was.  A  friend, 
seeing  this,  thought  it  was  because  Lincoln  did  not 
have  the  money,  and  so  offered  to  lend  him  that 
amount.  Without  answering,  Lincoln  went  to  his 
trunk  and  brought  out  a  package  containing  the  ex- 
act amount,  put  away  all  that  time,  awaiting  the  busi- 
ness call  of  the  postoffice  agent. 

As  he  turned  over  the  money  and  received  the  re- 
ceipt, he  said,  *'I  never  use  any  man's  money  but 
my  own.'' 

It  is  interesting  to  note  that  both  Washington  and 
Lincoln  became  surveyors  just  before  the  opening 
of  their  great  careers.  It  can  be  reasonably  said 
that,  by  analogy,  and  even  by  contrast,  they  were 
also  great  surveyors  for  the  rights  of  mankind. 

Sangamon  County  was  settling  up  so  rapidly  that 
John  Calhoun,  the  official  surveyor,  could  not  do 
the  required  work.  He  had  heard  of  Lincoln  as  be- 
ing capable  of  doing  almost  anything  required,  so 
he  sent  for  him  to  come  and  take  the  position  of 
deputy  surveyor. 

Lincoln,  so  far,  had  studied  human  beings  and 
law.    He  knew  nothing  about  mathematics,  much 


OUT  OF  THE  WILDERNESS  73 


less  about  surveying,  probably  not  more  than  he 
knew  about  military  tactics  when  he  was  elected  cap- 
tain. But  he  knew  he  could  learn  what  any  one 
else  had  learned.  He  bought  a  book  on  surveying 
and  stayed  with  it  almost  day  and  night.  He  bor- 
rowed wherever  he  could  hear  of  a  book  on  survey- 
ing. In  six  weeks  he  had  mastered  the  subject  so 
that  the  many  surveys  he  afterward  made  were  never 
disputed  and  were  always  found  to  be  correct. 

It  is  said  that  he  was  too  poor  at  first  to  buy  a 
surveyor's  chain  and  so  used  a  grapevine.  But  even 
a  grapevine  in  the  hands  of  Lincoln  told  the  truth 
about  measurements,  and  the  town  of  Petersburg, 
Illinois,  is  proud  of  having  been  surveyed  and  laid 
out  by  Lincoln. 


in.      OUT  OF  THE  WILDERNESS  PATHS  INTO  THE  GREAT 

HIGHWAY 

The  Great  Teacher  in  his  *^  Sermon  on  the  Mount, '' 
said,  ''Blessed  are  they  that  hunger  and  thirst  after 
righteousness,  for  they  shall  be  filled."  If  that  des- 
titute boy  had  not  hungered  and  tiiirsted  after  right 
knowledge,  the  whole  history  of  America,  after  his 
time,  would  have  been  different.  But  what  boy  would 


74  THE  STORY  OF  LINCOLN 

read,  or  what  other  boy  ever  did  read  such  a  book  as 
the  *' Revised  Statutes  of  Indiana?"  To  be  sure,  not 
the  boy  who  is  most  interested  in  getting  merely  the 
most  pleasure  out  of  life,  but  the  one  who  has  a  great 
desire  to  be  useful  and  worthwhile  in  the  world. 

The  next  book  that  deeply  impressed  his  career 
and  probably  had  most  to  do  with  developing  him  to 
influence  profoundly  the  history  of  our  country  was 
that  beginning  of  every  lawyer's  life,  *'Blackstone's 
Commentaries. ' ' 

This  is  the  way  Lincoln  tells  it  himself:  *'One 
day  a  man,  who  was  migrating  to  the  West,  drove 
up  in  front  of  my  store  with  a  wagon  which  con- 
tained his  family  and  household  plunder.  He  asked 
me  if  I  would  buy  an  old  barrel,  for  which  he  had 
no  room  in  his  wagon,  which  he  said  contained  noth- 
ing of  value.  I  did  not  want  it,  but,  to  oblige  him,  I 
bought  it,  and  paid  him,  I  think,  a  half-dollar.  With- 
out further  examination  I  put  it  away  in  the  store, 
and  forgot  all  about  it.  Some  time  after,  in  over- 
hauling things,  I  came  upon  the  barrel,  and,  empty- 
ing it  upon  the  floor  to  see  what  it  contained,  I  found 
at  the  bottom  of  the  rubbish  a  complete  edition  of 
Blackstone's  Commentaries.  I  began  reading  those 
famous  works  and  the  more  I  read  the  more  intensely 
interested  I  became.  Never  in  my  whole  life  was 
my  mind  so  thoroughly  absorbed." 


o 

o 


s 


1=5 


P^ 


FIBST  LAW  CASES 75 

It  was  that  interest  which  made  the  man  and  the 
great  historical  character  of  Lincoln.  One  lives  ac- 
cording to  his  interest  in  life,  and  the  meaning  re- 
alized in  him  as  humanity. 

In  1834  Lincoln  again  tried  for  the  legislature, 
and  this  time  was  elected.  This  gave  him  his  long 
desired  opportunity  to  study  law.  He  borrowed 
books  and  read  them  incessantly  until  he  mastered 
them.  He  never  studied  law  with  any  one,  as  was 
the  custom  in  those  days.  He  did  not  require  a 
teacher  to  lay  out  or  explain  his  mental  tasks. 

To  a  young  man  who  asked  him,  twenty  years  later, 
how  to  become  a  successful  lawyer,  he  said,  "Get 
books.  Read  and  study  them  carefully.  "Work,  work, 
work  is  the  main  thing.'' 


IV.    Lincoln's  first  law  cases 

One  of  the  first  important  law  cases  of  Lincoln 
in  its  claims  sounds  remarkably  like  the  unsolved 
problems  of  today,  and  shows  how  rights  have  to  be 
developed  year  by  year,  how  the  public  mind  has  to 
be  built  up  from  idea  to  idea  like  an  individual  mind. 

A  public-spirited  attempt  was  made  to'  build  a 


76  THE  STOBY  OF  LINCOLN 

bridge  across  the  upper  Mississippi.  The  boatmen 
declared  it  to  be  an  invasion  of  human  rights,  as 
they  had  vested  interests  at  stake  in  the  business 
they  had  built  up,  ferrying  people  across  the  river. 
They  declared  that  a  man  was  an  enemy  of  the  peo- 
ple who  would  try  to  destroy  business.  But  Lincoln 
won  the  case  against  them  in  favor  of  building  the 
bridge  for  the  larger  interest  of  the  people. 

In  another  significant  case  he  set  a  legal  prec- 
edent. A  negro  girl  had  been  sold  in  the  free  ter- 
ritory of  Illinois.  A  note  had  been  given  for  her 
but  the  maker  of  the  note  could  not  pay  it  when  it 
became  due  and  was  sued  for  it. 

Lincoln  defended  the  maker  of  the  note  on  the 
groimd  that  the  note  was  invalid  because  a  human 
being  could  not  be  bought  and  sold  in  Illinois.  The 
case  was  carried  to  the  Supreme  Court,  where  it  was 
decided  that  Lincoln's  view  of  the  case  was  correct 
law. 

Another  experience  has  still  greater  significance  as 
to  the  professional  character  of  Lincoln.  He  was  en- 
gaged as  counsel  in  a  reaper  patent  case.  It  was  to 
be  tried  at  Cincinnati.  The  opposing  counsel  was 
an  eminent  lawyer  from  the  East.  Lincoln's  friends 
were  eager  for  him  to  win  this  case,  as  it  would  give 
him  great  renown  and  prestige. 

His  client  had  four  hundred  thousand  dollars  at 


FIRST  LAW  CASES 77 

stake,  an  enormous  sum  at  that  time,  and  the  capi- 
talist became  frightened  at  the  great  talent  arrayed 
against  Lincoln.  He  called  in  the  services  of  a  cor- 
respondingly great  Eastern  lawyer,  Edwin  M.  Stan- 
ton. This  eminent  man  was  shocked  at  the  sight  of 
his  colleague,  Lincoln.  He  took  entire  control  of 
the  case  and  not  only  ignored  Lincoln,  but  openly 
insulted  him.  Lincoln,  through  an  open  door  in  the 
hotel,  heard  Stanton  scornfully  exclaim  to  the  client 
who  had  employed  Lincoln,  "Where  did  that  long- 
armed  creature  come  from  and  what  can  he  expect  to 
do  in  this  case?" 

At  another  time  Stanton  spoke  of  Lincoln  as  "a 
long,  lank  creature  from  Illinois,  wearing  a  dirty 
linen  duster  for  a  coat,  on  the  back  of  which  the 
perspiration  had  splotched  wide  stains  that  resem- 
bled a  map  of  the  continent.  '^ 

Lincoln,  completely  discouraged  and  thrown  out  of 
any  possible  council  with  a  man  thus  against  him, 
quit  the  case  and  sorrowfully  returned  to  Illinois. 

And  yet,  only  a  few  years  later,  in  the  great  crisis 
of  approaching  disunion,  Lincoln  became  President 
of  the  United  States  and  he  made  Stanton  his  Secre- 
tary of  War.  Very  soon  Stanton  learned  to  prize 
"the  long-armed  creature''  as  one  of  the  noblest  and 
greatest  men  in  the  world.  No  one  of  Lincoln's  col- 
leagues ever  questioned  his  superior  leadership  a^ 


78  THE  STORY  OF  LINCOLN 

the  supreme  chief  in  a  struggle  profoundly  affecting 
all  civilization  and  human  government. 

When  we  consider  how  Lincoln  worked  his  way 
up,  through  such  destitution  of  knowledge  and 
means,  in  twenty-five  years,  from  a  five-dollar  suit 
before  a  justice  of  the  peace  to  a  five-thousand-dollar 
fee  before  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States, 
we  know  that  such  progress  does  not  come  about  by 
accident  nor  political  fortunes,  but  by  sheer  interest 
and  work. 


T.      THE  MAN  WHO  COTJLD  NOT  LIVE  FOR  SELF  ALONE 

Henry  Cabot  Lodge  says,  **  Lincoln  could  have 
said  with  absolute  truth,  as  Seneca's  Pilot  says,  in 
Montaigne's  paraphrase,  *0h,  ^N'eptune,  thou  may  est 
save  me  if  thou  wilt;  thou  mayest  sink  me  if  thou 
wilt ;  but  whatever  may  befall  I  shall  hold  my  tiller 
true.'  " 

The  moral  process  of  his  life,  in  which  the  re- 
corded incidents  are  only  way-marks,,  is  the  only 
worthwhile  interest  for  the  American  youth  or  for 
the  newcomer  to  our  shores. 

Lincoln's  life-creed  may  be  taken  from  a  state- 
ment he  has  made  of  his  personal  duty.  ^*I  am  not 
bound  to  win,"  he  said,  **but  I  am  bound  to  be  true. 


NOT  TO  LIVE  FOR  SELF  ALONE       79 


I  am  not  bound  to  succeed,  but  I  am  bound  to  live 
up  to  the  light  I  have.  I  must  stand  with  anybody 
that  stands  right.  I  must  stand  with  him  while  he  is 
right,  and  I  must  part  with  him  when  he  is  wrong." 

That  this  does  not  mean  infallible  individual 
judgment  executed  at  any  cost  as  imperial  individual 
will  may  be  inferred  from  the  beginning  of  the  state- 
ment, but  it  does  mean  the  infallible  integrity  of 
honest  conscience  and  character. 

Lincoln  had  a  conscience  that  was  like  harmony  in 
music,  and  he  could  not  uphold  a  wrong  thing  any 
more  than  he  could  intentionally  use  a  wrong  figure 
and  hope  to  solve  correctly  his  problem. 

As  an  illustrating  incident,  one  of  his  clients 
wanted  to  bring  suit  against  a  widow  with  six  chil- 
dren for  six  hundred  dollars. 

^^Yes,"  said  Lincoln,  *'there  is  no  reasonable  doubt 
that  I  can  win  this  case  for  you ;  I  can  set  the  whole 
neighborhood  at  loggerheads;  I  can  greatly  distress 
a  widow  and  her  six  fatherless  children,  and  thereby 
gain  six  hundred  dollars  for  you  which  I  can  see  be- 
longs to  them  with  about  as  much  right  as  to  you, 
but  I'll  give  you  a  little  advice  for  nothing.  Try 
some  other  way  to  get  six  hundred  dollars." 

Like  the  rich  man  who  went  away  so  disturbed 
from  the  advice  of  Christ,  this  man  went  away  sor- 
rowin^r. 


80  THE  STORY  OF  LINCOLN 

In  another  instance  Lincoln  started  in  with  a  case 
believing  his  client  innocent,  then  he  reached  the 
belief  that  the  man  was  guilty.  Turning  to  his  asso- 
ciates in  the  case,  he  said,  '*  Sweet,  this  man  is  guilty. 
You  defend  him.  I  can't. ' '  The  large  fee  in  the  case 
was  forfeited,  but  his  self-respect,  that  nobility 
which  carried  him  through  many  great  dark  hours, 
was  saved. 

Once,  when  out  with  his  lawyer-companions,  he 
climbed  a  tree,  searching  for  a  bird's  nest,  out  of 
which  two  fledgelings  had  fallen.  His  companions 
made  sport  of  him  for  giving  so  much  time  and  work 
to  such  worthless  things,  but  he  exclaimed  with  such 
genuine  feeling  as  to  silence  them,  **I  could  not  have 
gone  to  sleep  in  peace  if  I  had  not  restored  those  lit- 
tle birds  to  their  mother." 

Lincoln  liked  to  argue,  and,  to  pass  the  time  in  a 
certain  stage-coach  ride,  he  was  arguing  that  every 
act,  no  matter  how  kind,  was  always  prompted  by  a 
selfish  motive.  About  this  time  the  stage  passed  a 
ditch  in  which  a  pig  was  stuck  fast  in  the  mud.  Lin- 
coln asked  the  driver  to  stop.  He  then  jumped  out 
and  rescued  the  pig. 

The  passenger  with  whom  Lincoln  had  been  ar- 
guing thought  that  he  now  had  proof  for  his  own 
side  of  the  case. 

"Now  look  here,"  he  said  as  Lincoln  climbed  back 


NOT  TO  LIVE  FOR  SELF  ALONE       81 

into  the  stage,  ^'you  can't  say  that  was  a  selfish  act." 
**Yes,  I  can,"  replied  Lincoln.  "It  was  extremely 
selfish.  If  I  had  left  that  little  fellow  sticking  in 
the  mud,  it  would  have  made  me  uncomfortable  till 
I  forgot  it.    That's  why  I  had  to  help  him  out." 

General  Littlefield  says  that  one  day  a  client  came 
in  with  a  very  profitable  case  for  Lincoln.  He  told 
Lincoln  his  story.  Lincoln  listened  a  little  while  and 
his  look  went  up  to  the  ceiling  in  a  very  abstract 
way.  Presently,  he  swung  his  chair  around  and  said, 
"Well,  you  have  a  pretty  good  case  in  technical  law, 
but  a  pretty  bad  one  in  equity  and  justice.  You'll 
have  to  get  some  other  fellow  to  win  this  case  for 
you.  I  couldn't  do  it.  If  I  was  talking  to  the  jury 
in  favor  of  your  case,  I'd  all  the  time  be  thinking, 
*  Lincoln,  you're  a  liar,'  and  I  believe  I'd  forget  my- 
self and  say  it  out  loud." 

Coleridge  in  his  "Rhyme  of  the  Ancient  Mari- 
ner" might  well  have  had  Lincoln  in  mind  when  he 
"wrote, 

"Farewell  I    Farewell  I  but  this  I  teU 
To  thee,  thou  wedding  guest  I 
He  prayeth  well  who  loveth  well 
Both  man  and  bird  and  beast. 


82 


THE  STORY  OF  LINCOLN 


"He  prayeth  best  who  loveth  best 
All  things  both  great  and  small 
For  the  dear  God  who  loveth  ns, 
He  made  and  loveth  all.'' 


That  was  Lincoln's  religion,  to  love  his  fellow- 
men  and  his  country.  In  the  turmoil  of  wrongs  in- 
festing the  confusions  that  were  bewildering  all 
minds  at  the  close  of  the  Civil  War,  all  now  know 
that  both  North  and  South  lost  the  noblest  and  most 
valued  friend,  the  ablest  and  wisest  restorer,  any- 
where to  be  found  in  all  the  vast  regions  of  pain. 


CHAPTER   VI 

I.      HELPFULNESS   AND    KINDNESS   OF   A    WORTH-WHILE 

CHARACTER 

It  would  take  a  whole  book  to  tell  the  stories  of 
kindness  and  sympathy  told  by  those  who  were  neigh- 
bors and  friends  of  Lincobi.  All  who  knew  him 
agree  in  saying  how  much  he  loved  children  and  how 
considerate  he  was  for  the  comfort  of  others. 

While  living  in  the  Rutledge  tavern  he  often  took 
upon  himself  all  kinds  of  discomforts  to  accommo- 
date travellers.  The  Great  Book  says,  *'He  who  loses 
his  life  for  my  sake  shall  find  it.^'  Lincoln  seemed 
most  of  the  time  to  forget  that  he  had  any  life  of 
his  own  in  trying  to  do  good  to  others.  Many  times 
he  served  ungrateful  people,  and  many  persons  mis- 
treated him  who  mistook  his  kindness  for  servility, 
but  that  didn't  change  Lincoln.  He  kept  right  on 
doing  good  to  others,  until  at  last  he  lost  his  life, 
in  the  full  meaning  of  that  phrase,  but  we  may  be 
sure  that  somewhere  else  he  has  found  it. 

If  a  traveller  became  stuck  in  the  mud,  literally  or 

83 


84  THE  STORY  OF  LINCOLN 

figuratively,  Lincoln  always  seemed  to  be  the  first 
to  see  his  need.  If  widows  and  orphans  were  suffer- 
ing, he  was  the  first  to  know  it  and  relieve  their 
wants. 

Deeds  of  kindness  often  look  like  "bread  cast  upon 
the  waters,"  but  we  are  assured  that  such  is  not  lost, 
for  it  ''shall  return  after  many  days." 

The  effective  way  in  which  Lincoln  sometimes 
turned  upon  those  who  "rim  him  down"  by  sarcas- 
tic references  to  his  poverty  or  looks  is  illustrated 
by  his  reply  to  George  Forquer.  Lincoln  was  to 
make  his  first  speech  in  the  Court  House  at  Spring- 
field, and  he  was  to  be  answered  by  Forquer,  a  rather 
aristocratic  citizen  of  the  town  who  had  been  a  Whig, 
but  who  had  recently  turned  over  to  the  Democrats 
and  received  the  appointment  to  an  important  office. 
Incidentally,  he  had  also  put  up  a  lightning  rod  to 
protect  his  rather  showy  house,  and  this  fact  was 
quite  well  known,  because  it  was  the  first  lightning 
rod  to  be  put  upon  a  house  in  that  county. 

Forquer  rose  to  speak  as  Lincoln  sat  down,  and 
his  smile  of  derision  seemed  to  show  that  he  expected 
to  demolish  with  ridicule  the  backwoodsman  from 
New  Salem. 

Turning  to  Lincoln,  he  said,  "The  young  man  must 
be  taken  down,  and  I  am  truly  sorry  that  the  task 
devolves  upon  me." 


LOVE  OF  FREEDOM  AND  TRUTH       85 

He  was  a  witty  and  sarcastic  speaker.  He  did  not 
try  to  argue  but  ridiculed  Lincoln  in  the  most  offen- 
sive way.  Lincoln's  friends  feared  for  this  on- 
slaught, not  knowing  what  Lincoln  could  say.  But 
Lincoln  said  it  so  effectively  in  a  few  words,  as  he 
always  seemed  able  to  do,  that  his  opponent  lost  and 
never  recovered. 

In  closing  a  very  short  reply,  Lincoln  said,  point- 
ing his  long,  accusing  finger  at  Forquer  in  a  scathing 
rebuke : 

**Live  long  or  die  young,  I  would  rather  die  now 
than,  like  this  gentleman,  change  my  politics,  and 
with  the  change  receive  an  office  with  a  salary  of 
three  thousand  dollars  a  year,  and  then  feel  obliged 
to  erect  a  lightning  rod  over  my  house  to  protect  a 
guilty  conscience  from  the  fear  of  an  angry  God." 


n.      THE  LOVE  OF  FREEDOM  AND  TRUTH 

Lincoln's  fairness  for  all  men,  even  when  they 
were  his  opponents  and  the  enemies  of  his  cause,  may 
be  seen  in  his  defense  of  Colonel  Baker. 

There  was  a  bitter  political  campaign  in  progress, 
and  Colonel  Baker  was  making  a  speech  to  a  rough 


86  THE  STORY  OF  LINCOLN 

crowd  in  the  courthouse.  This  building  had  been 
built  to  be  a  storehouse  and  directly  over  the  speaker 
was  a  loft  with  a  stairway  near  the  speaker's  stand. 
Lincoln  was  sitting  on  the  platform  above  as  a  more 
convenient  place  to  hear  the  speaker  than  from  the 
crowded  floor  below. 

The  speaker  began  to  say  things  that  annoyed  the 
crowd.  Suddenly  the  yell  was  raised  to  take  him 
off  the  stand  and  put  him  out.  The  crowd  surged 
forward  when  Lincoln's  long  legs  were  seen  to  swing 
over  the  edge  of  the  opening  at  the  head  of  the  stairs 
as  if  he  had  no  time  to  use  the  steps.  He  alighted 
on  his  feet  by  the  speaker's  side. 

*' Gentlemen,"  cried  Lincoln  as  he  raised  his  hand 
to  stop  the  oncoming  rioters,  "let  us  not  disgrace  the 
age  and  country  in  which  we  live.  This  is  a  land 
where  the  freedom  of  speech  is  guaranteed.  Mr. 
Baker  has  a  right  to  speak,  and  ought  to  be  per- 
mitted to  do  so.  I  am  here  to  protect  him,  and  no 
man  shall  take  him  from  this  stand  if  I  can  pre- 
vent it." 

The  sudden  appearance  of  this  champion  of  human 
rights  dropping  down  from  above  so  unexpectedly, 
his  perfect  calmness  and  fairness  and  the  well-known 
fact  that  he  was  no  idle  boaster,  quieted  the  out- 
break, and  Colonel  Baker  finished  his  address  in 
peace. 


LOVE  OF  FREEDOM  AND  TRUTH      87 


Joshua  Speed  tells  how  Lincoln  rode  into  Spring- 
field on  a  borrowed  horse  to  attend  his  first  session 
of  the  legislature  with  all  his  earthly  possessions 
packed  into  his  saddle  bags.  Lincoln  came  into  the 
store  owned  by  Speed  and  asked  the  price  of  a  bed- 
stead with  its  equipment  of  bedding.  The  price  was 
named,  Lincoln  said  that  was  no  doubt  cheap  enough 
but  that  he  could  not  buy  it  unless  the  storekeeper 
could  wait  for  part  of  the  pay  until  the  money  was 
earned. 

Speed  was  greatly  impressed  with  the  earnest 
young  man.  He  offered  to  share  with  him  the  room 
which  he  used  over  the  store.  He  pointed  to  the 
stairway  leading  up  to  the  room. 

Lincoln  went  up  the  stairs  and  in  a  moment  ap- 
peared at  the  stairway  with  beaming  face. 

*'Well,  Speed,"  he  said,  *'I  am  moved." 

Thus  he  made  friends  of  all  persons  at  once  and 
they  were  not  fairweather  friends,  but  lifetime 
friends. 

The  homely  old  copybook  text  so  familiar  to  our 
grandmothers,  ''Beauty  is  as  beauty  does,"  applies 
well  to  the  appearance  of  Lincoln,  and  to  the  first 
impressions  received  by  those  who  saw  him.  Para- 
phrasing the  poet,  ''none  knew  him  but  to  love  him, 
none  knew  him  but  to  praise."  He  was  like  one 
transformed  in  the  animation  and  zeal  of  express- 


88  THE  STORY  OF  LINCOLN 

ing  his  profound  sentiments  of  freedom,  humanity 
and  truth. 

One  who  knew  Lincoln  well  says,  *'He  was  one  of 
the  homeliest  men  ever  seen  when  walking  around, 
but  while  he  was  making  a  speech  he  was  one  of  the 
handsomest  men  I  have  ever  known.'' 


in.     THE  WIT-MAKERS  AND  THEIR  WIT 

Lincoln's  quick  wit  never  contained  any  sting  and 
he  lost  no  friends  by  it.  On  one  occasion  several  of 
his  friends  got  into  an  argument  about  the  proper 
proportions  of  the  body.  They  could  agree  on  their 
theories  in  all  respects  excepting  the  relative  length 
of  the  legs.  Lincoln  listened  gravely  to  their  argu- 
ments, and,  as  usual,  some  one  asked  him  his  opinion. 

**It  is  of  course  one  of  the  most  important  of 
problems,  and  doubtless  was  a  source  of  great  anxi- 
ety to  the  maker  of  man.  But,  after  all  is  said  and 
done,  it  is  my  opinion  that  man's  lower  limbs,  in 
order  to  combine  harmony  and  service,  should  be  at 
least  long  enough  to  reach  from  his  body  to  the 
ground." 

At  another  time  a  very  unhandsome  man  stopped 
Lincoln  and  peered  offensively  into  his  face. 


WIT-MAKERS  AND  THEIR  WIT        89 

*'Wliat  seems  to  be  the  matter,  my  friend,"  in- 
quired Lincoln. 

''Well,"  replied  the  stranger,  ''I  have  always  con- 
sidered it  my  duty  if  ever  I  came  across  a  man  uglier 
than  myself  to  shoot  him  on  the  spot." 

Lincoln  took  his  hand  in  friendly  agreement. 

''Stranger,  if  this  is  really  true,  shoot  me.  If  I 
thought  I  was  uglier  than  you,  I'd  want  to  die." 

Senator  Yoorhees  of  Indiana  said  that  he  once 
heard  Lincoln  defeat  a  windy  little  pettifogging  law- 
yer by  telling  a  story.  After  showing  how  the  fel- 
low's arguments  were  only  empty  words,  he  said, 
"He  can't  help  it.  When  his  oratory  begins  it  ex- 
hausts all  his  force  of  mind.  The  moment  he  be- 
gins to  talk  his  mental  operations  cease.  I  never 
knew  of  but  one  thing  that  was  similar  to  my  friend 
in  that  respect.  Back  in  the  days  when  I  was  a 
keel  boatman  I  became  acquainted  with  a  puffy  lit- 
tle steamboat,  which  used  to  bustle  and  wheeze  its 
way  up  and  down  the  Sangamon  River.  It  had  a  five- 
foot  boiler  and  a  seven-foot  whistle,  so  that  every 
time  it  whistled  that  boat  stopped." 

Even  in  business  Lincoln  could  not  refrain  from 
expressing  himself  in  a  humorous  way.  A  New  York 
firm  wrote  him  to  know  the  financial  reliability  of 
one  of  their  customers.    He  replied: 

'I  am  well  acquainted  with  your  customer  and 


<<' 


90  THE  STORY  OF  LINCOLN 

know  his  circumstances.  First,  lie  has  a  wife  and 
baby:  these  ought  to  be  worth  not  less  than  $50,000 
to  any  man.  Secondly,  he  has  an  office  in  which  there 
is  a  table  worth  $1.50,  and  three  chairs  at,  say,  $1.00. 
**Last  of  all,  there  is  in  one  corner  a  large  rat- 
hole,  which  will  bear  looking  into. 

^^Respectfully, 

*^A.  Lincoln".'' 


All  the  great  contemporaries  who  heard  Lincoln 
tell  stories  agree  that  he  never  told  one  merely  for  the 
sake  of  the  story  or  to  raise  a  laugh,  but  always  to 
carry  some  useful  point  or  impress  an  idea.  The 
aptness  and  wit  of  his  stories  often  were  more  con- 
vincing than  any  argument  or  logic.  We  may  be 
assured  that  any  other  kind  of  a  Lincohi  story  is 
spurious,  and  none  of  his. 

He  had  a  case  where  two  men  had  got  into  a  fight. 
It  was  proven  that  Lincoln's  man  had  merely  de- 
fended himself  against  the  other's  attack.  But  the 
other  attorney  insisted  that  Lincoln's  man  could  have 
defended  himself  less  violently. 

Lincoln  closed  out  the  argument  and  won  his  case 
with  a  story. 

"That  reminds  me,"  said  Lincoln,  "of  the  man 
who  was  attacked  by  a  farmer's  dog.    He  defended 


TURBULENT  TIMES 91 

himself  so  violently  with  a  pitchfork  that  he  killed 
the  dog. 

'^  'What  made  you  kill  my  dog?'  demanded  the 
angry  farmer. 

'Because  he  tried  to  bite  me,'  replied  the  victim. 
'Well,  why  didn't  you  go  at  him  with  the  other 
end  of  the  pitchfork?'  persisted  the  farmer. 

"  'Well,  I  would,'  replied  the  man,  'if  he  had  come 
at  me  with  the  other  end  of  the  dog.'  " 


IV.      TURBULENT  TIMES  AM)  SOCIAL  STORMS 

One  of  the  most  singular,  as  well  as  undignified, 
experiences  of  Lincoln  is  closely  involved  in  the  most 
important  measures  of  his  life.  This  refers  to  the 
duel  which  he  never  fought  with  a  man  who  was  a 
stormy  distirrber  for  many  years  in  many  exalted 
yet  unbecoming  affairs. 

In  1840  Lincoln  became  engaged  to  Miss  Mary 
Todd  of  Lexington,  Kentucky,  who  was  visiting  her 
sister,  Mrs.  Ninian  Edwards  of  Springfield.  She 
came  of  a  noted  and  rather  aristocratic  family  of 
Kentucky.  That  two  persons,  so  unlike  in  ancestry, 
in  social  experience,  and  in  education,  should  be  at- 
tracted to  each  other  has  seemed  to  be  mystery 


92  TEE  STORY  OF  LINCOLN 

I  ——• ■ ■ 

enough  to  breed  much  speculation,  a  great  number  of 
curious  stories,  and  much  ungracious  comment. 

Lincoln  was  aware  of  these  differences  as  much 
as  any  one,  and  this,  if  there  were  no  other  cause, 
would  account  for  his  seeming  uncertainties,  his  hesi- 
tation and  the  delays  in  his  courting  affairs  which 
have  been  the  source  of  so  much  elaboration  and  ex- 
planation. 

Lincoln  had  much  social  self-depreciation  and  he 
had  a  poetical  fancy  idealizing  his  own  sensitive- 
ness toward  women.  It  may  well  be  concluded  that 
his  judgment  was  helplessly  unsettled  from  the  im- 
possibility of  any  foresight  in  a  matter  of  such  vital 
life-importance.  The  endless  gossip  that  swarmed 
about  Lincoln's  love  affairs  may  well  be  dismissed 
as  worthless  in  the  presence  of  the  facts. 

Lincoln  married  Mary  Todd  November  4,  1842. 
During  the  summer  before,  in  commercial  and  po- 
litical affairs,  there  had  arisen  the  greatest  dissatis- 
faction with  the  money-interests  and  currency  of 
the  state.  The  current  money  had  depreciated  to 
half  its  value.  Though  the  people  had  to  use  that 
kind  of  money  in  all  their  transactions,  the  state 
officers  required  their  salaries  to  be  paid  in  gold. 

The  auditor  of  the  State  was  a  young  Irishman 
named  James  Shields.  He  was  exceedingly  vain, 
pompous  and  of  violent  temper.    Therefore,  he  was 


TURBULENT  TIMES 93 

a  shining  mark  for  the  wit  of  those  opposed  to  the 
present  management  of  the  state. 

In  the  *'Sangamo  Journal"  there  appeared  an  ar- 
ticle of  witty  satire,  ridiculing  Shields  and  the  finan- 
cial methods  of  his  political  associates.  It  was 
signed,  ''Rebecca  from  Lost  Townships." 

Shields  became  furious  and  demanded  to  fight  the 
man  responsible  for  it.  The  significance  of  this  is 
rather  in  the  peculiar  popularity  and  yet  unpopu- 
larity of  such  a  man  as  Shields.  His  reckless  adven- 
tures, his  incessant  boasting,  and  his  whirlwind  ca- 
reer of  turmoil  all  loaded  him  with  praise  and  ridi- 
cule for  many  a  year. 

Shields  went  into  the  Mexican  "War  and  came 
out  with  his  own  brand  of  glory.  But  it  won  popu- 
larity enough  to  make  him  Senator  of  the  United 
States.  As  an  indication  of  his  amazing  character^ 
he  wrote  a  preposterous  letter  to  the  man  he  de-i 
feated,  declaring,  that  if  Judge  Breese  had  not  been 
defeated.  Shields  would  have  killed  him. 

It  can  be  imagined  what  the  fury  of  such  a  man 
must  have  been  against  the  ''Rebecca"  letters. 

The  next  week  another  "Rebecca"  letter  ap- 
peared which  was  this  time  unmistakably  written  by 
some  mischief-loving  woman.  She  offered  to  settle 
the  quarrel  by  marrying  the  aggrieved  gentleman. 
This  was  too  much  for  Shields  and  he  stormed  the 


94  THE  STOBY  OF  LINCOLN 

newspaper  office  to  know  whom  he  should  hold  re- 
sponsible for  the  *' Rebecca  letters."- 


V.      THE  FRONTIER  "  FIRE-EATER '* 


The  public  taste  and  the  public  requirements  of 
its  individuals  change,  as  all  know,  from  generation 
to  generation.  The  development  of  Lincoln's  life  can 
be  appreciated  only  as  the  community  in  which  he 
lived  is  understood.  The  public  custom  is  neces- 
sary to  explain  Lincoln's  part  in  this  peculiar  epi- 
sode. 

The  truth  in  this  clownish  affair  was  that  Lincoln 
had  written  the  first  letter,  and  two  young  ladies,  one 
of  them  Mary  Todd,  were  the  authors  of  the  second 
letter.  Mary  Todd  was  at  that  time  estranged  from 
Lincoln,  and  probably  did  not  know  that  he  was  the 
writer  of  the  first  *' Rebecca  Letter." 

Shields  sent  his  friend.  General  Whiteside,  witK 
a  fiery  demand  to  the  editor  of  the  paper  to  know 
the  authors  of  the  *' Rebecca  letters."  The  editor  at 
once  consulted  Lincoln,  who  told  the  editor  to  tell 
General  Whitesides  that  Lincoln  held  himself  re- 
sponsible for  the  '^Rebecca  letters." 

Nothing  suited  Shields  better.    He  began  at  once 


THE  FRONTIER  ''FIRE  EATER''       95 

to  make  public  the  most  insulting  letters  to  Lincoln 
and  to  issue  the  most  fiery  challenges  to  a  duel. 

Though  duelling  was  at  that  time  forbidden  by 
law,  yet  so  strong  was  public  opinion  that  the  one 
who  refused  to  fight  a  duel  was  branded  as  a  coward 
and  would  not  only  lose  his  usefulness  with  the  pub- 
lic, but  his  opponent  would  thus  gain  corresponding 
prestige. 

Lincoln  so  far  conceded  to  this  demand  as  to  ac- 
cept the  challenge,  but  on  such  terms  as  to  make  the 
battle  ridiculous  rather  than  heroic.  He  had  the 
right  to  choose  the  weapons  and  the  conditions,  so 
he  chose  *^ cavalry  broadswords  of  the  largest  size,'' 
and  the  fight  was  to  be  "across  a  board  platform  six 
feet  wide.'' 

Lincoln  felt  keenly  the  stupidity  of  the  whole  af- 
fair, but  it  would  be  degrading  to  his  political  stand- 
ing to  refuse.  Fortunately,  Lincoln  had  a  friend 
in  Doctor  Merryman,  who  was  not  only  a  witty 
writer,  but  he  loved  a  fight,  and  he  used  his  wit  with 
a  fervor  that  overwhelmed  even  such  men  as  Shields 
and  Whitesides  in  the  final  roundup. 

However,  the  duel  progressed  so  far  that  the  par- 
ties thereto  went  to  Alton  and  crossed  over  to  Mis- 
souri for  the  fight.  But  friends  arrived  and  per- 
suaded Shields  to  withdraw  the  challenge.  The  next 
week  Shields  wrote  a  bombastic  article  in  the  "San- 


96  THE  STORY  OF  LINCOLN 

gamo  Journal''  crowning  himself  as  a  hero  and  Lin- 
coln as  a  coward.  Then  Dr.  Merryman  came  to  the 
rescue.  The  next  week  the  ^'Sangamo  Journal"  had 
another  version  of  the  now  ridiculous  duel.  It 
showed  up  the  Shields'  side  as  so  utterly  absurd  that 
the  humor  and  tragic  aspect  of  the  affair  among  such 
prominent  people  became  the  sensation  of  the  day. 
General  Whitesides  challenged  Doctor  Merryman 
and  Merryman  responded,  with  the  declaration  that 
his  selection  would  be  rifles  at  close  range  in  the 
nearby  fields.  This  would  not  do,  because  duelists 
could  not  hold  office  in  Illinois  and  Whitesides  was 
fund  commissioner.  His  boasts  proved  that  he  was 
not  afraid  to  lose  his  life  but  he  did  not  want  to  give 
up  his  fat  office. 

The  same  thing  happened  to  Shields.  He  chal- 
lenged Mr.  Butler,  one  of  Lincoln's  close  friends. 
Butler  accepted  at  once,  choosing  **to  fight  next 
morning  at  sunrise  in  Bob  Allen's  meadow,  one  hun- 
dred yards'  distance  with  rifles." 

Shields  declined. 

It  was  a  burlesque  and  a  comedy  farce,  and  so  it 
ingloriously  ended. 

But  Shields  had  no  less  singular  luck  than  he  had 
singular  friends.  He  was  commissioned  Brigadier- 
General  in  the  Mexican  War  while  still  holding  a 
state  office  and  before  he  had  ever  seen  a  day's  ser- 


TO  WHOM  HONOR  IS  DUE  97 

vice.  At  Cerro-gordo  he  was  wounded  and  that 
wound  was  doubtless  what  made  him  United  States 
Senator  from  Illinois.  After  serving  one  term  in 
constant  commotion  with  his  associates,  he  removed 
to  Minnesota  and  from  there  was  returned  to  the 
Senate  of  the  United  States. 

In  the  War  of  the  Rebellion  Lincoln  appointed 
him  Brigadier-General  and  he  was  again  wounded 
in  battle  when  his  troops  defeated  Stonewall 
Jackson. 

He  moved  into  Missouri  and  from  there  was  sent 
for  the  third  time  to  the  United  States  Senate.  A 
few  years  later  he  became  the  subject  of  one  of  the 
bitterest  and  most  disgraceful  controversies  in  Con- 
gress over  the  question  of  voting  him  money  and  a 
pension. 


VI.      HONOR  TO  WHOM  HONOR  IS  DUE 

Lincoln  always  seemed  to  be  far  more  proud  of 
his  fist  fight  with  Jack  Armstrong  of  the  Clary  gang 
than  of  his  near-duel  with  Shields  and  his  political 
ring.  He  had  many  an  occasion  to  refer  to  the  Clary 
boys,  but  never  to  the  Shields  crowd. 


98  THE  STOBY  OF  LINCOLN 

It  was  not  Lincoln's  disposition  to  have  personal 
quarrels. 

Only  one  other  is  known.  He  got  into  a  verbal 
encounter  with  a  man  named  Anderson  at  Lawrence- 
ville.  Anderson  wrote  him  a  harsh  note  demanding 
satisfaction. 

Lincoln  replied,  *'Your  note  of  yesterday  is  re- 
ceived. In  the  difficulty  between  us  of  which  you 
speak  you  say  you  think  I  was  the  aggressor.  I  do 
not  think  I  was.  You  say  my  words  ^imported  in- 
sult.' I  meant  them  as  a  fair  set-off  to  your  own 
statements,  and  not  otherwise ;  and  in  that  light  alone 
I  now  wish  you  to  understand  them.  You  ask  for 
my  *  present  feelings  on  the  subject.'  I  entertain  no 
unkind  feeling  toward  you,  and  none  of  any  sort 
upon  the  subject,  except  a  sincere  regret  that  I  per- 
mitted myself  to  get  into  such  altercation." 

Mr.  Anderson  was  ''satisfied"  and  henceforth 
counted  himself  as  one  of  Lincoln's  friends. 

Another  example  shows  Lincoln's  idea  of  quar- 
rels. It  ought  to  be  impressed  upon  every  boy's 
mind,  as  the  belief  of  this  great  leader  of  men. 

In  the  midst  of  the  war  a  young  officer  had  been 
court-martialed  for  a  quarrel  with  one  of  his  asso- 
ciates, and  Lincoln  had  to  give  him  an  official  repri- 
mand.   It  was  as  follows : 

*'The  advice  of  a  father  to  his  son,  'Beware  of 


C3 


"3 


z) 


be 


73 


T3 

3 


o 


TO  WHOM  HONOR  IS  DUE  99 


entrance  to  a  quarrel,  but,  being  in,  bear  it  that  the 
opposed  may  beware  of  thee!'  is  good,  but  not  the 
best.  Quarrel  not  at  all.  No  man  resolved  to  make 
the  most  of  himself  can  spare  time  for  personal  con- 
tention. Still  less  can  he  afford  to  take  all  the  con- 
sequences, including  the  vitiating  of  his  temper,  and 
the  loss  of  self-control.  Yield  larger  things  to  which 
you  can  show  no  more  than  equal  right;  and  yield 
lesser  ones,  though  clearly  your  own.  Better  give 
your  path  to  a  dog  than  to  be  bitten  by  him  in  con- 
testing for  the  right.  Even  killing  the  dog  would 
not  cure  the  bite." 

But  the  Shields'  quarrel  and  its  skyrocket  bur- 
lesque had  another  effect  probably  of  priceless  con- 
sequence to  Lincoln.  There  was  a  certain  whole- 
souled,  self-effacing  championship  in  it  of  the  two 
girls  who  had  written  the  last  ^*  Rebecca  letter. '* 
Mary  Todd  appreciated  it,  and  she  had  to  express 
her  appreciation  to  the  man  whom  she  knew  loved 
her,  but  who  feared  that  he  could  not  make  her 
happy.  Merely  to  be  made  happy  is  not  all  that  a 
real  woman  of  true  womanhood  is  concerned  with 
in  her  choice  of  a  husband.  Doubtless,  she  saw  in 
him  qualities  to  love  rather  than  form  or  manners. 
She  had  abundance  of  time  to  consider  all  things 
and  we  may  well  believe  that  she  was  wise  and  good 
in  her  choice.     Considering  their  differences,  it  is 


100 


TEE  STORY  OF  LINCOLN 


really  a  great  testimony  and  tribute  to  her  that  so 
little  could  ever  be  found  for  cruel  gossip  about  in- 
compatibility and  unhappiness  in  the  Lincoln  house- 
hold. 

Mary  Todd  ignored  the  coldness  that  Lincoln's 
sensitiveness  had  brought  between  them,  in  the  mu- 
tual adjustment  of  courtship,  and  she  thanked  him 
for  keeping  her  out  of  the  Shields'  gossip  and  con- 
troversy. The  coldness  disappeared  and  never  re- 
turned. They  were  married,  and  we  must  believe 
that  humanity  owes  her  a  priceless  debt,  that  she  was 
one  of  the  three  great  souls  who  made  the  immortal 
man,  that  together  in  glory  are  three  great  names, 
Nancy  Hanks  Lincoln,  Sarah  Bush  Lincoln  and 
Mary  Todd  Lincoln. 


CHAPTER   VII 

I.      SIMPLICITY  AND  SYMPATHY  ESSENTIAL  TO  GENUINE 

CHARACTER 

Greatness  of  mind,  valued  as  worth  while  in  his- 
torical characters,  has  always  been  characterized  by 
simplicity  and  sympathy,  especially  as  interested  in 
children  and  in  those  without  means  for  the  needs 
of  life.  Lincoln  said  pityingly  of  the  poor  that  the 
Lord  surely  loved  them  because  he  had  made  so 
many. 

That  Lincoln  understood  children  and  could  talk 
to  them  is  shown  in  his  visit  to  Five  Points  Mission, 
then  the  most  miserable  spot  in  all  the  poverty- 
stricken  sections  of  New  York  City.  No  one  knows 
why  he  went  there,  alone  and  unannounced.  Per- 
haps, knowing  what  was  the  lowest  possible  poverty 
in  the  frontier  forests,  he  wanted  to  see  what  it  was 
in  the  midst  of  the  greatest  wealth  in  America. 

The  manager  of  the  Mission,  seeing  a  stranger,  in 
the  rear  of  the  house,  who  had  been  such  an  earnest 
listener  to  their  exercises,  asked  him  if  he  would  like 
to  speak  a  few  words  to  the  children. 

101 


102  THE  STORY  OF  LINCOLN 


We  can  hardly  imagine  his  feelings  as  he  arose 
to  speak  to  those  suffering  little  ones,  so  like  his  own 
hard  childhood  and  yet  subject  to  such  different 
causes  and  conditions. 

Feeling  that  he  had  used  up  his  time,  after  speak- 
ing a  few  minutes,  he  stopped  but  they  urged  him 
to  go  on.  Several  times  he  ended  his  talk,  but  every 
time  they  cried  out  so  persistently  for  him  to  go  on 
that  he  spoke  to  them  long  over  time. 

No  one  knew  who  he  was,  but  so  impressive  had 
been  what  he  said  that  one  of  the  teachers  caught 
him  at  the  door,  begging  to  know  his  name.  He  re- 
plied simply,  *' Abraham  Lincoln  of  Illinois. '^ 

Adversity  only  made  Lincoln  stronger.  In  the 
midst  of  defeat  he  was  at  his  best.  In  the  midst  of 
great  moral  success,  in  the  profound  trials  of  his 
country,  his  heart  was  mild  and  gentle  as  a  child, 
and  his  eyes  misty  with  supreme  dreams  of  beauty 
and  peace  to  lessen  the  suffering  of  humanity. 

Once  when  Lincoln  was  speaking  for  Fremont,  a 
brazen  voice  in  the  audience  roared  out  above  his 
own,  *'Is  it  true,  Mr.  Lincoln,  that  you  came  into  the 
state  barefoot  and  driving  a  yoke  of  oxenT' 

The  interruption  had  come  in  the  midst  of  his 
strongest  argument  and  was  intended  to  throw  him 
off  of  his  subject. 

His  reply  came  back  with  a  bound  that  it  was  true 


NEARING  THE  HEIGHTS  103 

and  he  believed  he  could  prove  it  by  at  least  a  dozen 
men  in  the  audience  more  respectable  than  the 
speaker.  Then  he  seemed  inspired  by  the  question 
into  a  vision  of  this  country  as  the  home  of  the  free 
and  the  land  of  opportunity. 

In  a  great  burst  of  eloquence,  that  carried  the  peo^ 
pie  with  him,  he  showed  how  oppression  had  injured 
the  oppressor  as  much  as  the  oppressed,  even  as 
slavery  had  injured  the  master  as  it  did  the  slave. 

^*We  will  speak  for  freedom  and  against  slavery,^' 
he  said,  *^as  long  as  the  Constitution  of  our  coun- 
try guarantees  free  speech,  until  everywhere  on  this 
wide  land  the  sun  shall  shine,  and  the  rain  shall  fall, 
and  the  wind  shall  blow  upon  no  man  who  goes  forth 
to  unrequited  toil.'' 

This  was  before  he  had  spoken  in  New  York,  where 
his  speech  at  the  Cooper  Institute  awoke  the  peo- 
ple of  the  Eastern  States  to  realize  that  an  intellec- 
tual political  giant  had  at  last  come  out  of  the  West. 


n.     NEARING  THE  HEIGHTS  OP  A  PUBLIC  CAREER 

Lincoln's  long  struggle  to  know  and  to  be  worth 
while  culminated  at  last  in  a  political  career.  The 
good  opinion  of  associates  grew  into  the  favorable 


104  TEE  STORY  OF  LINCOLN 

friendship  of  his  neighbors  and  that  confidence  wid- 
ened to  the  community,  then  to  the  political  district 
and  so  on. 

In  this  age  when  thousands  of  dollars,  and,  in  some 
instances,  many  hundred  thousands  of  dollars  used 
for  campaign  expenses  is  a  common  occurrence,  it 
is  interesting  to  read  how  Lincoln  managed  such 
things.  He  was  elected  four  times  to  the  Illinois 
legislature.  One  time  the  Whigs  made  up  two  hun- 
dred dollars  to  pay  his  campaign  expenses.  After 
the  election  he  returned  one  hundred  and  ninety-nine 
dollars  and  twenty-five  cents,  to  be  given  back  to  the 
subscribers,  in  which  he  explained,  ''I  did  not  need 
the  money.  I  made  the  canvass  on  my  own  horse; 
my  entertainment,  being  at  the  house  of  friends,  cost 
me  nothing;  and  my  only  outlay  was  seventy-five 
cents  for  a  barrel  of  cider,  which  some  farm  hands 
insisted  I  should  treat  them  to.'' 

The  history  of  Lincoln's  political  battles  belongs 
to  those  who  would  comment  on  his  part  in  public 
affairs.  We  are  interested  here  in  a  moral  consid- 
eration of  what  built  him  up  to  a  life  used  in  the 
preservation  of  his  nation,  the  intimate  personal  in- 
terests of  his  wonderful  story,  and  how  he  stands  as 
an  ideal  character  of  American  manhood. 

It  is  therefore  sufficient  for  us  to  pass  over  the 
great  political  struggles  that  proved  him  to  be  the 


NEARING  THE  HEIGHTS  105 

*' Giant  of  the  West/'  and  begin  with  him  on  the 
way  to  the  White  House. 

Lincoln  was  not  exactly  as  the  prophet  without 
honor  in  his  own  country,  for  he  was  beloved  wher- 
ever he  was  known,  but  his  neighbors  were  struck 
with  surprise  when  he  was  nominated  to  be  Presi- 
dent of  the  United  States. 

One  fine  old  gentleman,  recently  settled  in  Spring- 
field from  England,  who  had  brought  his  old  coun- 
try ideas  of  propriety  with  him,  was  covered  with 
astonishment. 

*'What!"  he  exclaimed,  *^Abe  Lincoln  nominated 
for  President  of  the  United  States!  A  man  that 
buys  a  ten-cent  beefsteak  for  his  breakfast,  and  car- 
ries it  home  himself!    How  is  it  possible!" 

Lincoln's  vision  of  himself,  expressed  during  a  de- 
bate with  Douglas,  was  not  much  more  hopeful. 
Ponder  over  these  words  in  which  Lincoln  with  min- 
gled humor,  pathos  and  insight  contrasted  his  own 
appearance  with  that  of  his  adversary  in  the  famous 
debates : 

*' There  is  still  another  disadvantage  under  which 
we  labor.  ...  It  arises  out  of  the  relative  positions 
of  the  two  persons  who  stand  before  the  State  as 
candidates  for  the  Senate.  Senator  Douglas  is  of 
world-wide  renown.  All  the  anxious  politicians  of 
his  party  .  .  .  have  been  looking  upon  him  as  cer- 


106  TEE  STORY  OF  LINCOLN 

tainly,  at  no  distant  day,  to  be  the  President  of  the 
United  States.  They  have  seen  in  his  round,  jolly, 
fruitful  face,  post  offices,  land  offices,  marshalships 
and  Cabinet  appointments,  chargeships  and  foreign 
missions,  bursting  and  sprouting  out  in  wonderful 
exuberance,  ready  to  be  laid  hold  of  by  their  greedy 
hands.  On  the  contrary,  nobody  has  ever  expected 
me  to  be  President.  In  my  poor  lean,  lank  face  no- 
body has  ever  seen  that  any  cabbages  were  sprouting 
out.  These  are  disadvantages  all,  taken  together, 
that  the  Republicans  labor  under.  We  have  to  fight 
this  battle  upon  principle  and  upon  principle  alone.'' 

But  the  people  were  in  earnest.  It  was  realized 
by  all  that  the  fundamental  interests  of  American 
progress  were  in  the  midst  of  a  great  crisis.  They 
needed  a  reliable  man  and  Lincoln  was  that  man. 

Campaign  songs  are  usually  very  flat  reading  after 
the  campaign  is  over,  but  they  were  then  the  car- 
riers of  the  enthusiasm  for  a  great  cause. 

The  song  sung  in  the  state  nominating-convention 
at  Springfield,  Illinois,  had  for  its  first  verse  and 
chorus  the  following  lines: 


a 


Hark  I    Hark  I  a  signal  gun  is  heard, 
Just  beyond  the  fort ; 
The  good  old  Ship  of  State,  my  boys, 
Is  coming  into  port, 


MOMENTOUS  TIMES  107 


With  shattered  sails  and  anchors  gone, 
I  fear  the  rogues  will  strand  her ; 
She  carries  now  a  sorry  crew, 
And  needs  a  new  commander. 

Chorus 
*^Our  Lincoln  is  the  man  I 
Our  Lincoln  is  the  man  I 
With  a  sturdy  mate 
From  the  Pine-Tree  State, 
Our  Lincoln  is  the  manl*' 


m.      SOME  CHARACTERISTICS  OF  MOMENTOUS  TIMES 

Reference  to  a  few  of  his  speeches,  made  before 
his  election  to  the  presidency,  will  give  a  clear  idea 
of  his  political  Americanism,  to  which  was  entrusted 
the  definition  and  the  destiny  of  the  greatest  democ- 
racy in  the  world. 

The  Illinois  legislature  of  1854,  by  the  union  of 
Whigs  and  Know-Nothings,  indorsed  him  for  sena- 
tor and  sent  a  committee  to  notify  him.  The  Know- 
Nothings  were  especially  strong  on  the  slogan  of 
"America  for  Americans,"  and  wanted  to  shut  out 
immigration. 


108  THE  STORY  OF  LINCOLN 

In  the  reply  to  the  delegation  or  committee  of  no- 
tification, he  said,  *'Who  are  the  native  Americans? 
Do  they  not  wear  the  breech-clout  and  carry  a  toma- 
hawk! Gentlemen,  your  principle  is  wrong.  It  is 
not  American.  For  instance,  I  had  an  Irishman 
named  Patrick  working  my  garden.  One  morning 
I  went  out  to  see  how  Pat  was  getting  along. 

^^  *Mr.  Lincoln,'  he  said,  *what  d'ye  think  of  these 
Know-Nothing  fellers  ?'  I  explained  their  ideas  and 
asked  him  if  he  had  been  born  in  America. 

"  ^ Faith,  to  be  sure,'  Pat  replied,  'I  wanted  to 
be,  very  much,  but  me  mother  wouldn't  let  me.  It's 
no  fault  of  mine.'  " 

Lincoln  and  Pat  thus  together  believed  that  every 
baby,  born  anywhere  on  earth,  is  a  good  American 
until  its  mind  is  moulded  into  some  man-made  shape. 

Referring  to  the  thirteen  original  colonies  and 
what  they  stood  for,  he  said,  ^^  These  communities  by 
their  representatives  in  old  Independence  Hall  said 
to  the  world  of  men:  *We  hold  these  truths  to  be 
self-evident,  that  all  men  are  created  equal;  that 
they  are  endowed  by  their  Creator  with  certain  in- 
alienable rights;  that  among  these  are  life,  liberty, 
and  the  pursuit  of  happiness. '  This  was  their  lofty 
and  wise  and  noble  understanding  of  the  justice  of 
the  Creator  to  his  creatures.  In  their  enlightened 
belief  nothing  stamped  with  the  Divine  image  and 


MOMENTOUS  TIMES 109 

likeness  was  sent  into  the  world  to  be  trodden  on 
and  degraded  and  imbnited  by  its  fellows.  They 
grasped  not  only  the  race  of  men  then  living,  but 
they  reached  forward  and  seized  upon  the  farthest 
posterity.  They  created  a  beacon  to  guide  their  chil- 
dren and  their  children's  children;  and  the  count- 
less myriads  who  should  inhabit  the  earth  in  other 
ages.'' 

Among  the  many  familiar  quotations  from  these 
great  speeches  that  made  him  known  to  the  nation 
may  be  mentioned  a  few  that  should  never  be  for- 
gotten. 


'Let  none  falter  who  believes  he  is  right." 
'Let  us  have  faith  that  right  makes  might." 

*' Freedom  is  the  last,  best  hope  of  earth." 

"Disenthrall  ourselves,  then  we  shall  save  our- 
selves." 

"Come  what  will,  I'll  keep  my  faith  with  friend 
and  foe." 

"For  those  who  like  that  sort  of  thing,  that  is  the 
sort  of  thing  they  like." 

"I  do  not  think  much  of  a  man  who  is  not  wiser 
today  than  he  was  yesterday." 

"No  man  is  good  enough  to  govern  another  with- 
out the  other's  consent." 


110  THE  STOEY  OF  LINCOLN 

*' Would  you  undertake  to  disprove  a  proposition 
in  Euclid  by  calling  Euclid  a  liar!" 

'^Familiarize  yourself  with  the  chains  of  bondage 
and  you  prepare  your  own  limbs  to  wear  them." 

In  pioneer  days  it  was  very  common  for  individ- 
uals to  conclude  any  personal  controversy  by  resort 
to  the  settlement  of  ''fist  and  skull,"  and,  on  the  far 
frontier  of  the  Wild  West,  the  convincing  evidence 
that  brought  peace  was  often  the  quickest  and  most 
skillful  use  of  the  gun. 

We  are  now  in  that  pioneer  day  and  wild-west 
age  of  nations  whose  "fist  and  skull"  arguments  and 
wild- west  "gun-play"  must  end.  This  is  what  Lin- 
coln thought  of  it  in  the  midst  of  the  Civil  War.  It 
was  written  to  the  Springfield  convention. 

"Peace  does  not  appear  so  distant  as  it  did.  I 
hope  it  will  come  soon  and  come  to  stay;  and  so 
come  as  to  be  worth  the  keeping  in  all  future  time. 
It  will  then  have  been  proved  that  among  freemen 
there  can  be  no  successful  appeal  from  the  ballot  to 
the  bullet,  and  that  they  who  take  such  an  appeal  are 
sure  to  lose  their  case  and  pay  the  cost." 

It  is  interesting  here,  as  he  came  up  out  of  the 
darkness  into  the  dawn  of  his  supreme  humanity,  to 
know  what  the  greatest  men  of  his  times  thought  of 
him,  when  that  great  day  of  human  service  closed 


MOMENTOUS  TIMES 111 

down  over  him,  in  the  martyrdom  of  assassination. 
It  is  not  eulogy,  but  an  estimate  of  values  in  a  per- 
sonality, and  as  appreciation  of  righteousness  ex- 
alting a  man  into  an  ideal  of  his  age. 

Lord  Beaconsfield,  addressing  the  House  of  Com- 
mons, said,  ''In  the  life  of  Lincoln  there  is  some- 
thing so  homely  and  so  innocent  that  it  takes  the  sub- 
ject, as  it  were,  out  of  the  pomp  of  history,  and  out 
of  the  ceremonial  of  diplomacy.  It  touches  the  heart 
of  nations,  and  appeals  to  the  domestic  sentiments 
of  mankind.'' 

John  Stuart  Mill,  one  of  the  most  distinguished 
philosophers  of  the  last  century,  speaks  in  his  writ- 
ings of  Lincoln  as  "The  great  citizen  who  afforded 
so  noble  an  example  of  the  qualities  befitting  the  first 
magistrate  of  a  free  people,  and  who,  in  the  most 
trying  circumstances,  won  the  admiration  of  all  who 
appreciate  uprightness  and  love  freedom." 

D'Aubigne,  the  historian  of  the  Reformation, 
wrote, 

"While  not  venturing  to  compare  him  to  the  great 
sacrifice  of  Golgotha,  which  gave  liberty  to  the  cap- 
tive, is  it  not  just  to  recall  the  word  of  the  apostle 
John  (I  John  3 :  16)  :  "Hereby  perceive  we  the  love 
of  God,  because  he  laid  down  his  life  for  us :  and  we 
ought  to  lay  down  our  lives  for  the  brethren." 
Among  the  legacies  which  Lincoln  leaves  to  us,  we 


112  TEE  STORY  OF  LINCOLN 


shall  all  regard  as  the  most  precious  his  spirit  of 
equity,  of  moderation,  and  of  peace,  according  to 
which  he  will  still  preside,  if  I  may  so  speak,  over 
the  destinies  of  your  great  nation/' 


rV.      THE  BEGINNINGS  OF  GREAT  TRAGEDY 

As  we  all  now  know,  there  was  never  a  more  fear- 
less man  than  Abraham  Lincoln,  but  so  bitter  and 
so  threatening  were  his  enemies  that  it  was  believed 
by  his  friends  that  the  Presidency  should  not  be  en- 
dangered by  taking  any  chances  as  to  his  assassina- 
tion on  the  way  to  Washington,  for  his  inauguration. 
Open  boasts  were  widely  made  that  he  would  never 
be  inaugurated.  Assassination  was  especially  threat- 
ened if  he  should  pass  through  Baltimore,  and  it  was 
thought  best  by  the  managers  of  his  transportation 
that  it  should  not  be  known  when  he  passed  through 
Baltimore. 

Evidence  was  imcovered  that  a  band  of  sworn  as- 
sassins, headed  by  a  man  calling  himself  Orsini,  was 
to  throw  the  train  from  the  track  somewhere  be- 
tween Philadelphia  and  Baltimore,  and  then  do  their 
monstrous  deed.  If  this  failed,  they  were  to  mingle 
with  the  crowds  about  the  carriage  and  at  the  first 


THE  BEGINNINGS  OF  GREAT  TRAGEDY  113 


chance  assassinate  him,  by  discharging  pistols  at 
him  and  then  throwing  hand  grenades.  In  the  con- 
fusion they  expected  to  make  their  escape  to  a  ves- 
sel awaiting  them  in  the  harbor. 

The  plot  was  defeated  by  the  managers  of  the  jour- 
ney sending  Lincoln  back  to  Philadelphia  from  Har- 
risburg,  while  all  who  might  be  watching  him  as  spies 
for  the  plotters  thought  him  to  be  asleep  in  a  Har- 
risburg  hotel.  At  Philadelphia  he  was  placed  on 
board  a  night  train  for  Washington,  where  he  ar- 
rived safely  the  next  morning. 

It  was  here  at  Baltimore,  where  there  was  such 
opposition  to  the  preservation  of  the  Union,  that  a 
delegation  was  some  time  later  sent  to  Lincoln,  de- 
manding that  no  more  troops  pass  through  Mary- 
land. Lincoln  replied  that  the  troops  had  to  go  to 
their  destination,  and,  since  they  could  neither  go 
under  nor  over  Maryland,  they  would  have  to  go 
through  it.  Another  delegation  demanded  that  all 
hostilities  should  cease,  and  the  controversy  be  left 
in  the  hands  of  Congress,  otherwise  seventy-five 
thousand  men  would  oppose  any  more  troops  going 
through  Maryland. 

President  Lincoln  assured  them  that  hostilities 
would  not  cease  until  the  rebellion  was  ended,  and 
that  he  supposed  they  had  room  on  the  soil  of  Mary- 
land to  bury  seventy-five  thousand  men. 


114 


TEE  STORY  OF  LINCOLN 


This  unequivocal  language  ended  such  conferences 
and  deputations. 

These  stupendous  difficulties  crowding  upon  Lin- 
coln in  the  opening  of  the  war,  the  opposition  of  pow- 
erful men,  and  the  chaos  into  which  the  country  had 
been  thrown  by  the  slavery  agitation  are  subjects 
for  political  history,  and  were  the  trying  out  of  the 
great  soul  which  seemed  to  have  been  built  up  for 
that  purpose  from  every  experience  in  the  living  of 
men. 

General  Scott  had  charge  of  the  inaugural  cere- 
monies and  the  baffled  conspirators,  scattered  by  the 
police,  left  their  hideous  work  to  be  done  for  a  no 
less  monstrous  purpose  four  years  later. 


V.      THE  LITE  STRUGGLE  OF  A  MAN  TRANSLATED  INTO  THE 
LIFE  STRUGGLE  OF  A  NATION 


Lincoln,  in  his  speeches  before  the  beginning  of 
the  war,  cleared  the  public  mind  as  to  the  funda- 
mental issues  and  made  it  plain  that  the  first  sublime 
task  was  to  save  the  Union.  In  a  vague  manner  all 
men  knew  that  the  establishment  of  a  national  slave- 
labor  absolutism  in  the  South  meant  the  develop- 
ment of  an  aristocratic  slave-made  oligarchy  that 
would  cause  perpetual  war,  or,  otherwise,  bring  about 


LIFE  STRUGGLE  OF  A  MAN  115 


the  slave-holding  mastery  of  America.  Perhaps  no 
clearer  illustration  of  his  mission,  as  he  saw  it,  is  in 
evidence  than  may  be  taken  from  one  of  the  many 
characteristic  incidents.  While  en  route  to  Wash- 
ington for  his  first  inauguration  the  train  conveying 
Mr.  Lincoln  came  to  a  temporary  stop  at  Dunkirk, 
N.  Y.,  and  an  old  farmer  in  the  crowd  surrounding 
the  train  shouted: 

^'Mr.  Lincoln,  what  are  you  going  to  do  when  you 
get  to  Washington  r* 

Reaching  for  one  of  the  little  flags  that  decorated 
the  train,  he  held  it  aloft  and  said : 

^'By  the  help  of  Almighty  God  and  the  assistance 
of  the  loyal  people  of  this  country  I  am  going  to  up- 
hold and  defend  the  Stars  and  Stripes." 

The  preservation  of  the  Union,  regardless  of  all 
the  turmoil  and  clamor  on  other  issues,  was  the  one 
clear-sighted  object  of  Lincoln.  It  is  quite  true  that 
up  to  the  beginning  of  the  war  there  was  little  sen- 
timent in  the  North  for  the  abolition  of  slavery.  It 
was  the  beginning  of  war  that  crystalized  resent- 
ment against  slave-holding  power,  because  it  was 
thus  capable  of  destroying  the  union  in  the  further- 
ance of  its  own  dominion.  But  never  was  a  nation 
more  divided  into  mutually  injurious  confusions.  It 
is  always  so  in  democracies  where  every  one  thinks, 
talks  and  acts.    Authority  was  regarded  as  tyran- 


116  THE  STORY  OF  LINCOLN 

nical  and  Lincoln  soon  became  widely  berated  as  a 
despot.  But  his  patience  and  devotion  never 
swerved.  He  had  already  experienced  the  life-long 
lessons  of  holding  true.  The  situation  is  well  repre- 
sented in  the  way  General  McClellan  treated  Lin- 
coln. He  began  to  show  contempt  for  his  comman- 
der-in-chief by  causing  Lincoln  to  wait  outside 
like  any  other  caller,  and  once  he  went  to  bed  ignor- 
ing Lincoln's  call. 

General  McClellan  seemed  to  believe  himself  so 
much  greater  than  Lincoln  that  he  more  and  more 
publicly  ignored  the  President.  "When  the  mistreat- 
ment became  notorious,  Lincoln  replied,  '*!  will  hold 
McClellan 's  horse  if  he  will  only  bring  success.'' 

'*0n  to  Richmond,"  was  the  cry  of  the  nation,  but 
McClellan  remained  preparing  in  what  was  bitterly 
called  "masterly  inactivity." 

Lincoln  said  one  day  sadly,  "McClellan  is  a  great 
engineer,  but  his  special  talent  is  for  a  stationary 
engine." 

One  of  the  popular  songs  of  the  time,  reflecting  the 
bitterness  of  the  seemingly  interminable  delay,  has 
for  its  first  and  last  stanzas  the  following : 

"All  quiet  along  the  Potomac,  they  say, 
Except  now  and  then  a  stray  picket 
Is  shot,  as  he  walks  on  his  beat,  to  and  fro, 
By  a  rifleman  hid  in  the  thicket. 


LIFE  STRUGGLE  OF  A  MAN  117 


a 


His  musket  falls  slack ;  his  face,  dark  and  grim, 
Grows  gentle  with  memories  tender, 
As  he  mutters  a  prayer  for  the  children  asleep, 
For  their  mother,  may  Heaven  defend  her.' 


J? 


Washington's  struggle  and  patience  against  ad- 
versities and  confusions,  through  his  long  career  as 
leader  in  the  making  of  the  Union,  was  doubtless  an 
ever  present  example  and  consolation  to  Lincoln  in 
the  no  less  stupendous  task  of  preserving  the  Union. 

Laboulaye,  the  French  Statesman  says,  *' History 
shows  us  the  victory  of  force  and  stratagem  much 
more  than  of  justice,  moderation  and  honesty.  It  is 
too  often  only  the  apotheosis  of  triumphant  selfish- 
ness. There  are  noble  and  great  exceptions;  happy 
those  who  can  increase  the  number,  and  thus  be- 
queath a  noble  and  beneficent  example  to  posterity. 
Mr.  Lincoln  is  among  these.  He  would  willingly  have 
repeated,  after  Franklin,  that  'falsehood  and  artifice 
are  the  practice  of  fools,  who  have  not  wit  enough 
to  be  honest. '  All  his  private  and  all  his  political  life 
was  inspired  and  directed  by  his  profound  faith  in 
the  omnipotence  of  virtue." 


118  TEE  STORY  OF  LINCOLN 

VI.      SOME    HUMAN"    INTERESTS    MAKING    LIGHTER    THE 
BURDENS  OF  THE  TROUBLED  WAY 

Great  minds  always  see  a  ridiculous  aspect  in  the 
midst  of  every  human  crisis,  even  as  Franklin  did  in 
the  signing  of  the  Declaration  of  Independence  when 
he  said,  "We  must  all  hang  together  or  we  will  all 
hang  separately." 

The  President  on  a  certain  occasion  was  feeling 
very  ill  and  he  sent  for  the  doctor,  who  came  and 
told  him  that  he  had  a  very  mild  form  of  smallpox. 
'Is  it  contagious?"  he  asked. 
'Yes,  very  contagious,"  replied  the  doctor. 

A  visitor  was  present  who  was  very  anxious  to  be 
appointed  to  a  certain  office.  On  hearing  what  the 
doctor  said,  the  visitor  hastily  arose. 

*' Don't  be  in  a  hurry,  sir,"  said  Lincoln,  as  if  very 
well  intentioned  toward  him. 

"Thank  you,  sir,  I'U  call  again,"  said  the  retreat- 
ing office  seeker,  as  he  vanished  through  the  door. 

"Some  people,"  said  Lincoln,  laughing  at  the  hur- 
ried exit  of  his  friend,  "do  not  take  kindly  to  my 
Emancipation  Proclamation,  but  now  I  am  happy 
to  believe  I  have  something  that  everybody  can 
take." 

Once,  when  Charles  Sumner  called  upon  him,  he 
found  Lincoln  blacking  his  boots. 


SOME  HUMAN  INTERESTS  119 

''Why,  Mr.  President,"  he  exclaimed,  ^*do  you 
black  your  own  boots?" 

With  a  vigorous  rub  of  the  brush,  the  President 
replied, 

*' Whose  boots  did  you  think  I  blacked?" 

The  way  Lincoln  answered  unjuvstified  people  is 
illustrated  in  his  response  to  a  delegation  asking  the 
appointment  of  a  certain  man  to  be  commissioner  to 
the  Sandwich  Islands.  After  praising  his  qualifi- 
cations for  the  place,  they  urged  the  plea  of  his  bad 
health. 

The  President  said,  ''Gentlemen,  I  am  sorry  to 
say  that  there  are  eight  other  applicants  for  that 
place,  and  they  are  all  sicker  than  your  man." 

Lincoln,  in  the  great  receptions,  often  heard  flat- 
tering remarks  that  had  been  made  short  so  as  to  be 
delivered  quickly.  But  his  apt  replies  were  always 
equal  to  the  remark.  On  one  occasion,  as  the  hand- 
shakers came  by,  an  elderly  gentleman  from  Buffalo 
said,  ''Up  our  way  we  believe  in  God  and  Abraham 
Lincoln."  To  which  the  President  replied  as  he 
took  the  next  hand,  "My  friend,  you  are  more  than 
half  right." 

Somewhat  similar  is  a  noble  reply  of  Lincoln  to 
some  over-zealous  religious  friends  which  has  be- 
come justly  famous.  A  clergyman,  heading  a  dele- 
gation with  one  of  the  many  immature  and  injudi- 


120  TEE  STORY  OF  LINCOLN 

cious  appeals,  said  sadly,  "I  hope,  Mr.  Lincoln,  that 
the  Lord  is  on  our  side." 

"I  am  not  at  all  troubled  about  that,"  was  the  in- 
stant reply,  *'for  I  know  that  the  Lord  is  always  on 
the  side  of  right.  But  it  is  my  constant  anxiety  and 
prayer  that  this  nation  and  I  should  be  on  the  Lord's 
side." 


CHAPTER  VIII 

I.      THE  MAN  AND  THE  CONFIDENCE  OF  THE  PEOPLE 

Abraham  Lincoln,  as  President  of  the  United 
States  and  Commander-in-Chief  of  its  army  and 
navy,  never  seemed  to  know  that  he  was  any  more 
bound  to  look  out  for  the  good  opinion  of  the  world 
than  at  any  time  before.  To  him  there  was  no  such 
thing  as  presidential  attitude  or  pose.  He  did  not 
see  that  he  had  any  part  to  act  out  more  than  he  had 
always  had.  Life  might  be  a  stage,  as  Shakespeare 
had  described  it,  and  Lincoln  had  played  many  parts, 
but  it  was  always  as  a  man. 

'^Nothing  was  more  marked  in  Lincoln's  personal 
demeanor, '^  says  one  of  his  intimate  friends,  ''than 
his  utter  unconsciousness  of  his  position.  He  never 
seemed  aware  that  his  place  or  his  business  was  es- 
sentially different  from  that  in  which  he  had  al- 
ways been  engaged.  All  duties  were  alike  to  him. 
All  called  equally  upon  him  for  the  best  service  of 
his  mind  and  heart,  and  all  were  alike  performed 
with  a  conscientious,  single-hearted  devotion.'' 

121 


122  THE  STORY  OF  LINCOLN 

Mr.  Herndon,  Lincoln's  law  partner,  says,  "The 
great  predominating  elements  of  Mr.  Lincoln's  pe- 
culiar character  were :  First,  his  great  capacity  and 
power  of  reason;  second,  his  excellent  understand- 
ing; third,  an  exalted  idea  of  the  sense  of  right  and 
equity;  and,  fourth,  his  intense  veneration  of  what 
was  true  and  good." 

Thackery  expresses  a  vision  of  character  that 
might  well  be  used  to  describe  the  motive-interest  of 
Lincoln,  and  every  other  youth  who  desires  to  be 
worth  while: 

*'Come  wealth  or  want,  come  good  or  ill, 
Let  old  and  young  accept  their  part, 
And  bow  before  this  awful  will, 
And  bear  it  with  an  honest  heart. 
Who  misses  or  who  wins  the  prize, — 
Go,  lose  or  conquer  as  you  can; 
But  if  you  fail  or  if  you  rise. 
Be  each,  pray  God,  a  gentleman." 

Tn  that  great  address  which  he  gave  on  the  occa- 
sion of  his  being  swown  in  the  first  time  as  Presi- 
dent of  the  United  States,  toward  the  close,  he  said, 
"Why  should  there  not  be  a  patient  confidence  in 
the  ultimate  justice  of  the  people?  Is  there  any 
better  or  equal  hope  in  the  world?    In  our  present 


Liucolu  Monument  —  Springfield,  Jllinuis. 


CONFIDENCE  OF  THE  PEOPLE       123 


di:fferences  is  either  party  without  faith  in  being 
right?  If  the  Ahnighty  ruler  of  nations,  with  his 
eternal  truth  and  justice,  be  on  your  side  of  the 
North,  or  on  yours  of  the  South,  that  truth  and  that 
justice  will  surely  prevail,  by  the  judgment  of  this 
great  tribunal  of  the  American  people." 

At  the  last  of  his  inaugural  address  he  said,  refer- 
ring to  the  people  of  the  South,  *'In  your  hands,  my 
dissatisfied  fellow  countrymen,  and  not  in  mine,  ig 
the  momentous  issue  of  civil  war.  The  government 
will  not  assail  you.  You  can  have  no  conflict  with- 
out being  yourselves  the  aggressors.  You  have  no 
oath  registered  in  Heaven  to  destroy  the  govern- 
ment ;  while  I  have  the  most  solemn  one  to  'preserve, 
protect  and  defend'  it." 

It  was  in  1840,  when  he  set  this  standard  that  made 
him  worthy  of  being  called  the  savior  of  his  nation. 
In  a  great  political  address  at  that  time,  he  said, 
**Let  it  be  my  proud  plume  not  that  I  was  the  last 
to  desert  (my  country),  but  that  I  never  deserted 
her." 

The  result  is  a  united  and  powerful  America  fac- 
ing the  centuries  of  human  posterity  as  a  working 
place  for  the  enlargement  of  freedom  accomplished 
as  rapidly  as  is  possible  through  the  perfection  of 
character  and  civilization. 


124  THE  STORY  OF  LINCOLN 


n.     TYPICAL  INCIDENTS  FROM  AMONG  MOMENTOUS 

SCENES 

Lincoln's  many  forms  of  kindness  are  exemplified 
in  such  a  continuous  series  of  acts,  during  his  period 
of  almost  unlimited  political  power,  that  only  a  few 
typical  instances  need  to  be  described. 

One  day  a  woman  got  past  the  doorkeeper  and 
thrust  herself  into  his  presence.  Her  husband  was 
captured  and  condemned  to  be  shot.  He  was  one  of 
the  hated  Mosby  guerillas.  She  had  come  to  beg  for 
his  pardon.  She  weepingly  poured  out  the  story  of 
his  kindness,  his  love  for  his  family  and  that  they 
could  hardly  live  without  him.  She  said  that  she  was 
a  Northern  woman,  that  she  would  take  him  to  their 
home,  and,  on  his  parole  and  her  promise,  he  should 
never  again  do  harm  to  his  country.  She  had  papers 
also  setting  forth  these  facts.  Lincoln  examined 
them  and  decided  to  parole  the  husband  in  her  care. 

At  hearing  this,  the  woman  sobbed  with  joy  as 
if  her  heart  would  burst  with  gratitude. 

**My  dear  woman,''  said  Lincoln,  listening  to  her 
hysterical  sobs,  "if  I  had  known  it  would  make  you 
feel  so  bad  as  this,  I  would  never  have  pardoned 
him." 


TYPICAL  INCIDENTS ^125 

*^You  do  not  understand  me,"  she  cried,  fearful 
that  he  might  reverse  his  decision. 

^'Yes,  I  do,''  he  replied,  ^'but  if  you  do  not  go 
away  at  once  I  shall  soon  be  crying  with  you." 

The  Judge  Advocate  General  was  one  day  review- 
ing death  sentences  with  Lincoln  when  they  came  to 
one  where  a  young  soldier  was  to  be  shot  for  *^  cow- 
ardice in  the  face  of  the  enemy. "  He  had  hid  behind 
a  stump  during  battle. 

Lincoln  drew  out  the  paper  and  said,  *^This  one 
I'll  have  to  put  with  my  bunch  of  leg  cases." 

^'  *Leg  cases,'  "  said  Judge  Holt;  ^*what  do  you 
mean  by 'leg  cases?' " 

^^Do  you  see  that  bunch  of  papers  in  yonder 
pigeon-hole?"  he  replied.  "Well,  they  are  cases 
marked  *  Cowardice  in  the  face  of  the  enemy.'  I  call 
them,  for  short,  my  leg  cases.  I'll  put  it  up  to  you 
for  judgment :  if  Almighty  God  gives  a  boy  a  cow- 
ardly pair  of  legs,  how  can  he  help  their  running 
away  with  him." 

One  of  the  instances,  which  was  far  from  being 
either  desertion  or  "Cowardice  in  the  face  of  the 
enemy,"  came  unexpectedly  before  him.  A  little 
woman  of  poverty-stricken  clothing  and  pinched  fea- 
tures, after  several  days  trying,  at  last  succeeded  in 
getting  through  the  press  of  people  waiting  to  see 
Lincoln,  and  told  him  that  her  only  son  was  about 


126  THE  STORY  OF  LINCOLN 


to  be  shot  for  desertion.  His  regiment  had  come  by- 
near  their  home,  and,  being  refused  leave  of  absence, 
he  had  gone  without  permission  to  see  her.  He  had 
returned  to  his  regiment  but  had  been  arrested,  tried 
and  ordered  shot,  and  there  was  only  one  more  day. 
She  did  not  know  where  he  was  now  confined. 

Lincoln  examined  the  papers  verifying  her  state- 
ments. He  hastily  arose  from  his  chair,  seized  the 
woman  by  the  hand,  and,  leaving  the  offices  without 
a  word,  hastened  over  to  the  Secretary  of  War. 

Stanton,  weary  with  Lincoln's  constant  interfer- 
ence against  what  the  War  Secretary  believed  to  be 
necessary  discipline,  begged  Lincoln  to  leave  that 
matter  to  him. 

But  Lincoln  insisted.  He  gave  directions  that  im- 
mediate messages  be  sent  to  every  army  headquar- 
ters till  the  boy  be  found  and  the  execution  stayed 
for  his  further  orders. 

It  was  in  a  similar  instance  where  mercy  had  been 
given  to  a  New  England  mother  that  she  came  out 
from  the  interview  silent,  as  if  wrapped  in  thought. 

Some  friend  interrupted  her  to  know  what  had  so 
impressed  her. 

"I  have  always  been  told,"  she  said,  "that  Lincoln 
is  one  of  the  ugliest  of  men.  I  now  laiow  that  to  be 
a  lie.    He  is  one  of  the  handsomest  men  I  ever  saw." 

In  another  case,  when  Lincoln  had  relieved  the  dis- 


EXPERIENCES  DEMANDING  MEECY    127 

tress  of  an  old  man  for  his  only  son,  the  orders  were 
that  the  soldier  should  not  be  executed  until  further 
orders  from  Lincoln. 

**But  that  is  not  pardon,  is  itT'  said  the  fearing 
petitioner. 

"Well,  it's  just  as  good,"  replied  Lincoln.  "He 
will  be  older  than  Methuselah  before  I  order  his  ex- 
ecution. Killing  a  man  doesn't  make  him  any  better 
or  wipe  out  the  act." 


m.      EXPERIENCES  DEMANDING  MERCY  AND  NOT  SACRI- 
FICE 

The  kindness  so  exemplified  throughout  his  life 
never  failed  on  the  side  of  mercy,  as  shown  in  many 
an  incident  of  the  war. 

In  one  case  a  woman,  whose  son  had  run  away 
from  home  at  the  age  of  seventeen  and  joined  the 
Confederacy,  sought  to  have  him  released  from  Fort 
McHenry,  where  he  was  in  the  hospital,  a  wounded 
prisoner. 

She  applied  to  Stanton,  Secretary  of  War.  He 
refused  to  listen  to  her,  saying,  "I  have  no  time  to 
waste  on  you.    If  you  have  raised  up  a  son  to  rebel 


128  THE  STORY  OF  LINCOLN | 

against  the  best  Government  under  the  sun,  you  and 
he  must  take  the  consequences." 

She  attempted  to  plead  with  him,  but  he  very 
peremptorily  ordered  her  to  go,  saying  that  he  could 
do  nothing  for  her. 

Friends  asked  her  to  go  to  see  Lincoln,  but,  shar- 
ing in  the  Southern  prejudice  or  misunderstanding 
of  the  President,  she  refused  in  despair,  believing 
him  to  be  more  fierce  than  Stanton.  But  she  was  at 
last  persuaded  to  try. 

With  fear  and  trembling  she  came  into  his  pres- 
ence, and  in  the  greatest  joy  any  woman  can  have 
she  came  away. 

**When  I  was  permitted  to  go  in  to  see  him,"  she 
said,  in  describing  the  scene,  *'he  was  alone.  He 
immediately  arose,  with  the  most  reassuring  respect, 
and,  pointing  to  a  chair  by  his  side,  said,  *  Take  this 
seat,  Madam,  and  tell  me  what  I  can  do  for  you.'  " 

She  handed  him,  without  speaking,  a  letter  telling 
the  truth  about  her  son.    He  read  it  thoughtfully. 

*'Do  you  believe  he  will  honor  his  parole  if  I  per- 
mit him  to  go  with  you,"  he  said,  with  great  kindness 
in  his  voice. 

"I  am  ready,  Mr.  President,"  she  replied,  *'to  peril 
my  personal  liberty  that  he  will  keep  his  parole." 

**You  shall  have  your  boy,  my  dear  Madam,"  he 
said.    *'To  take  him  from  the  ranks  of  rebellion  and 


EXPERIENCES  DEMANDING  MERCY    129 


give  him  to  a  loyal  mother  is  the  best  investment  that 
can  be  made  by  this  government." 

He  handed  her  an  order  to  give  to  the  conmaanding 
officer  at  Fort  McHenry. 

''May  God  grant,"  he  fervently  added,  "that  your 
boy  may  prove  a  blessing  to  you  and  an  honor  to  his 
country." 

Lincoln's  interest  in  the  lowly  and  their  sacrifices 
for  the  Union  has  become  classic  in  his  letter  to  a 
Boston  mother.  A  copy  of  this  letter  hangs  on  the 
wall  in  Brasenose  College,  Oxford  University,  Eng- 
land, as  a  model  of  pure  and  exquisite  diction,  which 
has  never  been  excelled. 

**Dear  Madam: 

''I  have  been  snown  in  the  files  of  the  War  De- 
partment a  statement  of  the  Adjutant-General  of 
Massachusetts  that  you  are  the  mother  of  five  sons 
who  have  died  gloriously  on  the  field  of  battle.  I  feel 
how  weak  and  fruitless  must  be  any  word  of  mine 
which  should  attempt  to  beguile  you  from  the  grief 
of  a  loss  so  overwhelming.  But  I  cannot  refrain 
from  tendering  you  the  consolation  that  may  be 
found  in  the  thanks  of  the  republic  they  died  to  save. 
I  pray  that  our  Heavenly  Father  may  assuage  the 
anguish  of  your  bereavement  and  leave  you  only  the 
cherished  memory  of  the  loved  and  lost,  and  the  sol- 


130  THE  STORY  OF  LINCOLN 

emn  pride  that  must  be  yours  to  have  laid  so  costly 
a  sacrifice  upon  the  altar  of  freedom. 

**  Yours  sincerely  and  respectfully, 

*^A.  Lincoln. '* 


IV.      HUMANITY  AND  TKE  GREAT  SCHOOL  OF  EXPERIENCE 

Many  people  in  estimating  Lincoln's  scholarship 
do  not  sufficiently  recognize  how  much  an  eager  stu- 
dent of  life  can  learn  in  such  wide  experience  as  his 
among  men.  To  say  that  he  was  uneducated  or  that 
he  was  self-made  are  alike  erroneous.  He  was  truly 
entered  in  the  school  of  experience  in  which  he  chose 
the  wisest  interest  as  his  teacher,  and  from  which  he 
graduated  as  a  martyred  president,  one  of  the  wisest 
masters  of  humanity. 

It  can  hardly  be  said  that  Lincoln  arrived  slowly 
at  a  leadership  of  men.  He  was  only  twenty-eight 
when  he  was  regarded  as  one  of  the  most  influential 
men  in  his  State.  The  nation  was  then  in  the  midst 
of  the  religious  belief  that  God  intended  slavery  or 
he  would  not  have  made  men  black.  Even  at  that 
early  period  Lincoln,  with  the  boldness  of  a  Martin 
Luther,  declared  that  *Hhe  institution  of  slavery  is 


THE  SCHOOL  OF  EXPERIENCE      131 

founded  both  on  injustice  and  bad  policy,"  though 
the  great  reformation  was  not  yet  at  hand. 

It  is  said  that  ' 'those  in  glass  houses  should  not 
throw  stones."  Society  and  goverinnent  have  yet  so 
many  sins  and  wrongs  to  answer  for  that  the  people 
of  slavery  days  can  hardly  be  blamed  for  not  seeing 
as  we  see  now.  Mankind  seems  to  be  only  well  started 
on  the  way  to  civilization.  Now  and  then  we  are 
given  a  great  far-seeing  man  and  the  vision  of  right- 
eousness is  made  a  little  clearer.  We  see  a  little  far- 
ther through  him  into  the  promised  land  of  a  better 
world. 

To  any  one  looking  down  upon  the  stormy  United 
States  of  that  period  it  could  be  seen  that  probably 
no  one  ever  entered  the  presidency,  and  more  prob- 
ably never  would,  who  seemed  so  destitute  of  inJ&u- 
ential  associates  and  political  supporters.  It  was 
Lincoln  alone  and  his  faith  in  the  unseen  faithful  of 
his  ancient  Israel.  He  knew  the  people.  He  knew 
they  understood  what  the  great  crisis  in  their  coun- 
try's history  meant  for  their  ideals  of  America. 
They  wanted  a  leader  from  among  themselves,  be- 
cause they  no  longer  trusted  the  politicians  in  high 
places. 

In  1862  John  James  Piatt  wrote : 


132  THE  STORY  OF  LINCOLN 


"Stern  be  the  Pilot  in  the  Dreadful  hour 
When  a  great  nation,  like  a  ship  at  sea, 
"With  the  wroth  breakers  whitening  at  her  lea. 
Feels  her  last  shudder  if  the  Helmsman  cower ; 
A  God-like  manhood  be  his  mighty  dower  f 

This  seems  to  show  that  the  patriotic  men  of  the 
literary  East  were  not  yet  sure  of  him.  In  fact,  it 
was  not  yet  sure  that  there  was  any  man  anywhere 
who  could  remain  sane  and  true  through  the  rampant 
treason  and  raging  strife. 

A  year  later  Frank  Moore  wrote : 

**  Stand  like  the  rock  that  looks  defiant 
Far  o'er  the  surging  seas  that  lash  its  form! 
Composed,  determined,  watchful,  self-reliant, 
Be  master  of  thyself  and  rule  the  storm." 

If  the  Americans  who  tried  to  destroy  Washing- 
ton could  now  appear  among  us  and  see  what  we 
and  the  world  think  of  him,  they  would  hardly  at- 
tempt to  justify  what  they  said  and  did  to  ruin  him. 
Many  lived  to  realize  their  error  in  defaming  Lin- 
coln and  to  appreciate  their  pitiful  malignity  in 
spreading  the  gossip  and  slander  about  him.  And 
yet  a  few  strove  on  to  save  some  of  their  reputation 
for  intelligence  or  personal  honor  and  honesty,  until 


TEE  SCHOOL  OF  EXPERIENCE       133 


research  and  cumulative  evidence  established  the  un- 
assailable truth  of  his  standing  and  character  as  one 
of  the  noblest  and  greatest  of  Americans. 

The  lesson  of  personal  justice  and  integrity  is 
learned  slowly  where  freedom  has  long  seemed  to 
mean  political  license  to  distort  and  defame  party 
opponents.  But  election  slanders  die  out  as  the  peo- 
ple emerge  from  party  possession  and  mastery. 
After  the  election  is  over,  still  increasing  numbers 
become  conscious  that  most  of  the  evils  told  of  the 
opposition  have  either  been  lies  or  the  distorted  half- 
truths  that  are  more  misleading  to  the  honest-inten- 
tioned  minds. 

But,  fortunately,  one  of  Lincoln's  great  sayings 
has  been  proven  true  even  in  the  miscellaneous  free- 
dom of  Americans.  To  an  insignificant  interruption 
on  an  insignificant  occasion,  one  of  those  famous  say- 
ings popped  up,  as  it  were  from  the  mass  of  think- 
ing in  Lincoln's  mind,  *'You  can  fool  some  of  the 
people  all  of  the  time,  and  all  of  the  people  some 
of  the  time,  but  you  cannot  fool  all  of  the  people  all 
of  the  time." 

Lincoln's  great  passion  for  friendship  in  the  midst 
of  his  prophetic  vision  is  shown  in  the  last  paragraph 
of  his  first  inaugural  address.  He  said,  *'I  am  loath 
to  close.  We  are  not  enemies,  but  friends.  We  must 
not  be  enemies.    Though  passion  may  have  strained, 


134  TEE  STORY  OF  LINCOLN 

it  must  not  break  our  bonds  of  affection.  The  mys- 
tic chords  of  memory,  stretching  from  every  battle- 
field and  patriot  grave  to  every  living  heart  and 
hearthstone  all  over  this  broad  land,  will  yet  swell 
the  chorus  of  the  Union,  when  again  touched  as  they 
surely  will  be,  by  the  better  angels  of  our  nature." 


V.     SIMPLE  INTERESTS  THAT  NEVER  GROW  OLD 

Lincoln's  great  sympathy  for  those  who  mourn 
is  expressed  in  a  letter  of  condolence  to  a  friend 
whose  father  had  just  died. 

**Dear  Fanny: 

^^In  this  sad  world  of  ours  sorrow  comes  to  all, 
and  to  the  young  it  comes  with  bittered  agony  be- 
cause it  takes  them  unawares.  The  older  have 
learned  ever  to  expect  it.  You  cannot  now  realize 
that  you  will  ever  feel  happier.  Is  this  not  so  ?  And 
yet,  it  is  a  mistake.  You  are  sure  to  be  happy  again. 
To  know  this,  which  is  certainly  true,  will  make  you 
some  less  miserable  now.  I  have  had  experience 
enough  to  know  what  I  say,  and  you  need  only  to 
believe  it  to  feel  better  at  once.  The  memory  of  your 
dear  father,  instead  of  an  agony,  will  be  a  sad,  sweet 


SIMPLE  INTERESTS 135 

feeling  in  your  heart  of  a  purer  and  holier  sort  than 
you  have  known  before. 

''Your  sincere  friend, 

''A.  Lincoln/' 

His  fatherly  feeling  toward  childhood  is  shown 
in  many  stories  of  his  younger  son  Tad. 

Little  Tad  had  all  the  impetuosity  of  energetic 
childhood.  His  father's  example  of  kindness  once 
led  him  into  conflict  with  the  White  House  cook. 
Tad  never  saw  a  hungry-looking  boy  that  he  didn't 
invite  him  in  to  have  something  to  eat.  This  gen- 
erosity was  a  light  that  could  not  be  hid  under  a 
bushel.  The  number  of  hungry  boys  increased  sur- 
prisingly. At  last  Peter,  the  cook,  thought  that  Mrs. 
Lincoln  must  be  told.  He  accordingly  refused  en- 
trance to  a  hungry  bunch  that  Tad  brought  in.  Tad 
was  very  angry  that  his  benevolence  and  his  author- 
ity should  be  thus  disputed.  He  flew  upstairs  to  see 
his  mother,  but  she  was  nowhere  to  be  found.  At 
this  crisis  he  saw  his  father  coming  up  the  yard  with 
Secretary  Seward.  They  were  discussing  some  im- 
portant affairs  of  state,  but  that  was  insignificant  in 
comparison  with  Tad's  grievance.  He  ran  out  to 
carry  his  complaint  to  the  head  of  the  nation. 

''Father,"  he  cried,  running  up  to  the  Executive 
in  Chief  of  the  United  States,  "Peter  won't  let  me 


136  TEE  STORY  OF  LINCOLN 


feed  these  hungry  boys.  Two  of  them  are  boys  of 
soldiers.  Isn't  it  our  kitchen?  I'm  going  to  dis- 
charge Peter.    He  doesn't  obey  orders." 

Secretary  Seward  was  very  much  amused. 

The  President  turned  to  him  as  if  much  perplexed. 

^* Seward,"  he  said,  *' advise  with  me.  This  case 
requires  great  diplomacy." 

Mr.  Seward  patted  Tad  on  the  head  and  said,  "My 
boy,  be  careful  that  you  don't  run  the  government 
into  debt." 

Then  Lincoln  took  his  little  boy's  hand  in  his,  say- 
ing, "Tell  Peter  that  you  really  have  to  obey  the 
Bible  which  tells  you  to  feed  the  hungry,  and  that 
he  ought  to  be  a  better  Christian." 

Tad  went  to  Peter  with  the  astonishing  news  that 
his  father  didn't  believe  the  White  House  cook  was  a 
Christian. 

The  religious  problem  of  "feeding  the  hungry" 
won  quickly  over  the  economic  problem  of  White 
House  expenses.  Childhood  was  not  defeated  in  its 
sympathies,  and,  like  every  other  moral  question,  it 
was  solved  in  the  spirit  of  social  democracy. 

Secretary  Seward  writes  of  this  that  in  less  than 
an  hour  they  passed  back  through  the  yard  on  their 
way  to  a  Cabinet  meeting  and  about  a  dozen  small 
boys  were  sitting  on  the  kitchen  steps  having  a  state 
dinner  at  the  expense  of  the  government. 


SOME  INCIDENTS 137 

VI.      SOME  INCIDENTS  FROM  THE  GREAT  YEARS 

Little  incidents  of  appreciative  consideration 
marked  all  of  Lincoln's  way. 

One  afternoon  in  Chicago,  while  many  noted  vis- 
itors were  gathered  about  him,  a  little  boy  entered 
the  room,  and,  seeing  Lincoln,  took  off  his  cap, 
whirled  it  over  his  head  and  shouted,  ^'Hurrah  for 
Lincoln!" 

Mr.  Lincoln  gently  made  his  way  through  the 
crowd,  picked  the  little  boy  up  in  his  arms,  held  him 
out  at  arm's  length,  studied  him  a  moment  seri- 
ously, and  then  shouted,  in  like  enthusiasm,  as  he  set 
the  boy  down,  ** Hurrah  for  you !'' 

Honorable  W.  D.  Kell  tells  an  incident  that  oc- 
curred in  asking  Lincoln  to  do  something  for  Willie 
Bladen. 

This  boy  had  served  a  year  on  the  gunboat  Ottawa 
and  had  gone  through  two  important  battles.  Willie 
lived  in  the  district  of  Congressman  Kell  and  he 
asked  Kell  to  help  him  get  a  place  in  the  Naval 
School.  The  testimony  of  the  gunners  on  the  Ot~ 
tatva  was  that  Willie  had  carried  powder  to  them  in 
the  midst  of  the  hottest  engagements  with  all  the 
coolness  and  bravery  of  any  of  the  sailors,  and  Con- 
gressman Kell's  sympathy  was  thoroughly  enlisted 
for  the  boy's  ambition. 


138  THE  STORY  OF  LINCOLN 

Lincoln  was  mueh  interested  in  the  case  and  at 
once  wrote  to  the  Secretary  of  the  Navy  to  appoint 
Willie  Bladen  to  the  school,  if  there  was  yet  a  place 
for  him. 

The  appointment  was  made  and  the  boy  was  or- 
dered to  report  in  July.  But  Congressman  Kell 
found,  on  going  back  home,  that  Willie  would  not  be 
fourteen  till  September,  and  no  one  could  be  accepted 
in  the  Naval  School  under  fourteen. 

Willie  was  terribly  distressed. 

*^ Never  mind,''  said  Mr.  Kell,  "I'll  take  you  to 
see  the  President  about  this  and  I  am  sure  he  will 
manage  it  some  way." 

A  few  days  later,  Congressman  Kell,  holding 
Willie  Bladen  by  the  hand,  walked  in  to  where  Lin- 
coln sat,  and  introduced  the  boy. 

Willie  made  a  profound  bow. 

"Why,  bless  me,"  responded  Lincoln,  "is  this  the 
boy  who  (Jid  so  gallantly  in  those  two  great  battles ! 
I  feel  that  I  should  bow  to  him." 

And,  with  that,  Lincoln  arose  and  made  a  bow  to 
the  little  hero. 

The  President  then  made  out  papers  directing  that 
the  boy  be  allowed  imtil  September  to  report,  then 
putting  his  hand  on  the  boy's  head,  he  said,  "Now, 
my  boy,  go  home  and  play  for  the  next  two  months. 
They  may  be  the  last  holidays  you  will  ever  get." 


SOME  INCIDENTS       139 

Lincoln's  laiowledge  of  the  Bible  is  shown  by- 
many  an  incident. 

In  one  of  the  darkest  hours  of  the  war  a  mass  con- 
vention was  called  of  Union  men  to  protest  against 
the  President's  *^ imbecile  policy  in  the  conduct  of 
the  war.''  It  was  also  intended  to  start  a  boom  for 
** Fremont  the  Pathfinder"  to  succeed  Lincoln  to 
the  Presidency.  Instead  of  a  great  mass  convention 
of  many  thousands,  only  four  hundred  disgruntled 
politicians  were  present. 

When  this  news  was  brought  to  Lincoln,  he 
reached  for  the  Bible  that  always  lay  on  his  desk, 
and,  turning  to  the  first  book  of  Samuel,  the  twenty- 
second  chapter,  read  aloud,  **And  every  one  that  was 
in  distress,  and  every  one  that  was  in  debt,  and  every 
one  that  was  discontented  gathered  themselves  unto 
him ;  and  he  became  a  Captain  over  them :  and  there 
were  with  him  about  four  hundred  men." 

The  old  saying,  originating  from  the  Bible,  "To 
have  friends  you  must  show  j^ourself  friendly,"  was 
always  true  in  Lincoln's  case.  One  of  these  friends 
once  said  of  Lincoln  that  "he  had  nothing,  only 
friends."  His  enemies  did  not  laiow  him  or  they 
would  not  have  been  enemies. 


CHAPTER   IX 

I.     FALSEHOOD  AIDS  NO  ONE'S  TRUTH 

James  Oppenheim  says: 

**The  greatest  are  the  simplest — 
They  need  be  nothing  else, 
It  is  the  rest  who  have  to  play  parts, 
To  seem  what  they  are  not.'' 

War  times  and  periods  of  great  public  agitation 
have  always  brought  forth  in  every  free  country  the 
most  scurrilous  and  vicious  denunciations  and  slan- 
ders of  public  men.  Such  vile  vituperation  of  Wash- 
ington, Lincoln  and  others  in  our  stormy  periods,  if 
all  printed  would  make  many  volumes  that  bear  in 
numerous  instances  the  logical  appearance  of  au- 
thentic history.  But  when  sifted  down,  each  to  its 
origin,  it  is  always  what  some  one,  long  since  gone 
from  the  possibility  of  explanation,  has  said,  or  been 
supposed  to  say,  who  might  have  known  or  might 

have  misunderstood. 

140 


FALSEHOOD  AIDS  NO  ONE'S  TEUTH    141 

Every  young  man,  if  not  every  boy,  sooner  or  later 
hears,  as  if  indisputable,  the  most  vulgar  stories 
about  men  whom  the  world  has  enrolled  as  their  no- 
blest benefactors.  All  the  moral  world  then  seems 
to  go  to  pieces  as  these  stories  seem  to  be  the  truth. 
But  it  is  a  common  evidence  of  the  viciousness,  the 
most  degenerate  and  cowardly  viciousness,  that  is 
thus  seen  to  remain  possible  in  the  composition  of 
common  minds.  Political  perversions  of  the  mean- 
ing and  motives  of  public  men  are  so  conmion  in  elec- 
tion times  that  the  only  wonder  is,  the  only  reassur- 
ance is,  how  little  the  disease  of  slander  prevails, 
and  yet,  alas,  we  may  not  see  how  much  injury  and 
despair  it  has  caused  and  is  causing  in  growing 
minds.  Many  delight  in  making  respected  people  ap- 
pear filthy.  Somehow,  it  satisfies  and  excuses  their 
own  brains  and  degenerate  character. 

Many  people  vaguely  know  that  an  assertion  may 
be  wrong,  they  even  more  vaguely  know  what  is  the 
right  thing,  and,  when  some  one  appears  to  state 
clearly  what  is  vrrong,  and  to  give  a  clear  idea  of 
what  is  right,  and  a  clear  vision  of  the  right  way, 
then  he  becomes  the  embodiment  of  the  people  and 
they  follow  him.  It  was  thus  that  Lincoln  was  the 
superbly  great  man.  In  the  days  when  Americanism 
was  a  mist  and  a  fog  in  so  many  high  places,  Lin- 
coln stood  forth  as  the  embodied  patriotism  and  mind 


142  THE  STORY  OF  LINCOLN 

of  America.  When  men  stormed  around  him  with 
ideas  as  diverse  as  the  wind,  he  was  a  soul  high  and 
clear  as  the  unchanging  sun.  The  storm-makers  are 
gone,  but  Lincoln  remains,  unchanged,  one  of  the 
beacon  lights  of  mankind. 

Lincoln's  favorite  poem  reflects  the  deep  burden 
of  his  own  soul.  It  is  a  long  poem  written  by  Wil- 
liam Knox,  who  was  a  much  valued  friend  of  Sir 
Walter  Scott. 

Four  of  the  stanzas  are  as  follows : 

"Oh I    Why  should  the  spirit  of  mortal  be  proud? 
Like  a  swift-fleeting  meteor,  a  fast-flying  cloud, 
A  flash  of  the  lightning,  a  break  of  the  wave, 
He  passeth  from  life  to  his  rest  in  the  grave. 

"So  the  multitude  goes  like  the  flower  or  the  weed,       j| 
That  withers  away  to  let  others  succeed ; 
So  the  multitude  comes — even  these  we  behold. 
To  repeat  every  tale  that  has  often  been  told. 

"Yea!  hope  and  despondency,  pleasure  and  pain, 
Are  mingled  together  in  sunshine  and  rain; 
And  the  smile  and  the  tear,  the  song  and  the  dirge, 
Still  follow  each  other,  like  surge  upon  surge. 


TO  MISREPRESENT  NOT  FREEDOM    143 


'  ^Tis  the  wink  of  an  eye,— 'tis  the  draught  of  a 

breath ; 
From  the  blossom  of  health  to  the  paleness  of  death, 
From  the  gilded  salon  to  the  bier  and  the  shroud; 
O,  why  should  the  spirit  of  mortal  be  proud  T' 


n.      FREEDOM  TO  MISREPRESENT  IS  NOT  FREEDOM 

One  of  the  great  perils  of  the  American  republic, 
which  makes  progress  so  slow  and  misery  so  rich  in 
victims,  is  the  perversions  which  opponents  put  upon 
the  words  of  public  men,  and  the  distortions  which 
are  given  to  their  meaning.  It  is  not  only  brutal, 
but  to  misshape  righteous  ideas  is  treason  to  those 
who  receive  them,  and  it  brands  such  malefactors 
as  criminal  minds.  The  traitor  and  the  liar  are  ab- 
horred, but  somehow  we  have  not  yet  classified  the 
unspeakable  vice  that  deforms  minds  by  disfiguring 
ideas  so  that  they  make  a  man  say  what  he  never 
said  and  to  represent  what  he  never  was.  This  malig- 
nant vice  is  not  above  the  village  gossip  and  the  vile 
tongue  of  common  slander,  but  it  has  been  especially 
the  method  of  gamblers  in  the  most  sacred  social  in- 
terests, and  of  demagogues  trying  to  control  the  elec- 
tion of  officers  and  legislators  for  our  government. 

Such  perversions  were  placed  on  Lincoln's  mean- 


144  THE  STORY  OF  LINCOLN 

ing  throughout  the  South  that  his  name  was  the  most 
abhorred  of  all  names,  until  the  miseries  of  recon- 
struction, by  contrast,  so  brought  in  comparisons 
that  he  became  known  as  the  one  great  soul  who  had 
not,  through  all  the  terrible  struggle,  ever  uttered  a 
single  bitter  word  against  them,  and  who  was  the 
one  great  friend  who  could  have  given  them  justice 
and  peace. 

Soon  the  typical  view  of  the  intelligent  South  was 
that  "his  untimely  and  tragic  end  was  one  of  the 
severest  catastrophes  of  the  war,'^  and,  to  the  South, 
his  death  was  **the  direst  misfortune  that  ever  dark- 
ened the  calendar  of  its  woes.'' 

Up  to  the  time  of  his  nomination  and  following 
him  in  many  ways  on  to  his  death,  the  Eastern  States 
took  up  the  most  trivial  news  items  and  used  them 
for  ridicule,  as  representing  Lincoln  to  be  the  mere 
caricature  of  a  man. 

One  of  these  minor  incidents,  showing  this  defam- 
ing method,  is  represented  as  follows  in  the  news- 
paper headlines  of  New  York  and  New  England. 
The  great  news,  in  the  midst  of  the  fearful  times, 
relating  to  this  incident  was  usually  introduced  in 
these  words,  **01d  Abe  kisses  a  Pretty  Girl." 

Here  is  the  true  story :  A  little  girl  named  Grace 
Bedell  lived  at  Westj&eld,  New  York.  Her  father 
was  a  republican,  but  her  two  brothers  were  demo- 


TO  MISREPRESENT  NOT  FREEDOM    145 

crats,  and,  therefore,  hearing  much  excited  argu- 
ment, she  was  greatly  interested.  Of  course,  she  was 
a  republican  and  she  wanted  to  help  her  father.  See- 
ing a  portrait  of  Lincoln  gave  her  an  idea.  If  Lin- 
coln only  had  whiskers  like  her  father,  he  would  look 
better,  and  so  her  brothers  might  not  be  so  much 
against  him.  No  sooner  was  this  improvement 
thought  of  than  she  hastened  to  put  it  into  an  earn- 
est letter  to  Mr.  Lincoln,  telling  him  of  her  idea. 

She  seemed  to  think  that  all  great  men,  like  her 
father,  must  have  a  little  girl,  so  she  said  in  closing, 
*'If  you  have  no  time  to  answer  my  letter,  will  you 
allow  your  little  girl  to  reply  for  you?'' 

Such  a  letter  could  not  be  ignored  by  the  great- 
hearted man  to  whom  it  came.    He  replied, 

"Springfield,  Illinois,  Oct.  19,  1860. 
"My  dear  little  Miss: 

"Your  very  agreeable  letter  of  the  fifteenth  is  re- 
ceived. I  regret  the  necessity  of  saying  I  have  no 
daughter.  I  have  three  sons;  one  seventeen;  one 
nine,  and  one  seven  years  of  age.  They,  with  their 
mother,  constitute  my  whole  family.  As  to  whiskers, 
having  never  worn  any,  do  you  think  people  would 
call  it  a  piece  of  silly  affectation  if  I  should  begin 
now?  "Your  very  sincere  well-wisher, 

"A.  Lincoln"." 


146  TEE  STORY  OF  LINCOLN 

It  happened,  when  on  the  journey  to  Washington 
to  be  inaugurated,  that  the  train  stopped  at  West- 
field.  Suddenly,  in  speaking  to  the  people,  he  re- 
membered. 

^'I  have  a  little  correspondent  at  this  place,"  he 
said,  "I  would  like  to  see  her.'' 

Some  one  called  out  and  asked  if  Grace  Bedell 
was  in  the  crowd  that  surged  around  the  train.  Far 
back  in  the  crowd  the  way  began  to  open  and  a 
beautiful  little  girl  came  forward,  timid  but  happy, 
to  speak  to  the  President-elect,  who  was  also  happy 
to  show  her  that  he  had  taken  her  advice  and  begun 
to  grow  a  beard.  The  little  girl  was  lifted  up  to  him. 
He  took  her  in  his  arms  and  tenderly  kissed  her  fore- 
head in  the  midst  of  the  enthusiastic  approval  of  a 
cheering  multitude. 

But  the  story  ran  the  rounds  of  the  East  as  the 
uncouth  conduct  of  a  backwoods  demagogue.  ^ 

As  Europe  got  its  idea  of  the  new  President  from 
the  New  York  and  New  England  papers,  he  was  be- 
lieved by  foreign  leaders  to  be  the  proof  of  degene- 
rate democracy  and  the  failure  of  popular  govern- 
ment. Throughout  the  war  there  was  lavished  upon 
him  an  unceasing  tirade  of  caricature  and  lampoon. 
But  they  had  been  deceived.  The  shock  of  his  assas- 
sination seemed  to  tear  off  the  veil  that  blinded  their 
eyes,  and  since  then  all  the  scholarship  of  Europe 


Lincoln  Statue  —  Chicago,  Illinois. 


HOMELY  WAYS 147 

has  analyzed  his  career  as  showing  one  of  the  great 
characters  of  the  world.  History  finds  that  he  was 
a  prophet  of  ideal  humanity,  the  farthest  possible 
from  despotic  sovereignties.  Dynastic  states  can 
never  fight  for  a  democratic  government  merely  to 
preserve  it,  and  democracies  can  never  fight  merely 
to  preserve  a  party  in  power.  It  may  very  well  be 
doubted  that  the  North  could  have  won  the  Civil 
War  if  there  had  not  been  involved  the  moral  issues 
of  human  slavery.  England  would  surely  have  in- 
tervened for  the  starving  workers  of  their  cotton- 
mills,  but  the  workers  refused  to  have  their  cause 
supported  by  fastening  slavery  upon  any  part  of  the 
human  race. 


m.      HOMELY  WATS  TO  EXPRESS  TRUTH 

The  way  Lincoln  looked  at  the  malicious  denun- 
ciations of  his  conduct  of  the  war,  the  vile  stories 
told  about  him  and  the  wicked  perversions  of  the 
things  he  said  was  once  characterized  by  him  in  the 
story  of  an  incident  that  happened  to  two  Irish  emi- 
grants who  had  come  out  into  the  wilderness  fresh 
from  the  Emerald  Isle. 

They  were  tramping  their  way  through  the  West 


148  THE  STORY  OF  LINCOLN 


seeking  for  work.  One  evening  they  camped  at  the 
edge  of  a  pond  of  water.  Being  tired,  they  were 
soon  fast  asleep.  Suddenly  they  were  awakened  by 
a  chorus  of  bellowing  sounds  the  like  of  which  they 
had  never  heard  before.  It  was  not  comparable  to 
anything  they  knew  of  man  or  beasts.  Baum,  gur- 
gle and  bellow  it  went  here,  there,  and  then  seem- 
ingly everywhere.  They  grabbed  their  walking-stick 
shillelahs,  ready  to  face  the  enemy,  whether  man, 
beast  or  devil.  But  nothing  was  to  be  seen.  They 
crept  forward,  then  boldly  searched,  strained  their 
eyes  in  every  direction  and  defied  their  enemy  with 
many  insulting  challenges  to  show  himself,  but  the 
scattering  bellowing  was  all  that  could  be  found. 

At  last  a  happy  thought  struck  one  of  them.  "Ja- 
mie,'' he  cried  to  his  companion,  "I  Iniow  what  it  isl 
It's  nothing  but  a  noise." 

Lincoln  took  this  attitude  toward  all  minor  things 
that  could  have  absorbed  his  time  for  weightier  ques- 
tions. 

When  General  Phelps  captured  Ship  Island,  near 
New  Orleans,  early  in  the  war,  he  took  upon  himself 
the  power  of  freeing  all  the  slaves  on  the  island. 
This  looked  like  something  very  important  to  many 
people,  who  were  surprised  that  Lincoln  took  no  no- 
tice of  it.  At  last  he  was  taken  to  task  for  it,  and 
he  settled  the  whole  question  with  a  story. 


HOMELY  WAYS 149 

There  was  once  a  man  who  was  very  meek  but  he 
had  a  very  aggressive  wife.  He  had  the  reputation 
of  being  badly  henpecked.  One  day  a  friend  saw 
the  poor  man^s  wife  switching  him  out  of  the  house. 

The  first  time  the  friend  met  the  henpecked  man, 
after  that  disgraceful  episode,  the  friend  said,  *^I 
have  always  stood  up  for  you,  as  you  well  know,  but 
now  I  am  done  with  you.  Any  man  who  allows  his 
wife  to  switch  him  out  of  the  house  deserves  all  he 
gets.'' 

The  abused  man  patted  his  friend  on  the  back  and 
in  a  conciliating  tone  said,  '^Now  don't  feel  that  way 
about  it,  it  didn't  hurt  me  a  bit,  and  you  have  no  idea 
what  a  great  amount  of  satisfaction  it  gives  my  dear 
wife." 

Lincoln  saw  things  as  symbols  with  moral  mean- 
ings. On  seeing  a  tree  covered  with  a  luxuriant  vine, 
he  said,  *'The  vine  is  beautiful,  but,  like  certain 
habits  of  men,  it  decorates  the  ruin  it  makes." 

Speaking  of  the  difference  in  meaning  between 
character  and  reputation,  he  said,  **  Character  is  like 
a  tree  and  reputation  is  like  its  shadow.  The  shadow 
is  what  we  think  of  it,  but  the  real  thing  is  the  tree." 

Some  influential  people  were  urging  him  to  declare 
the  slaves  free  before  conditions  made  such  a  thing 
practical.  He  pressed  that  point  home  to  them  with 
a  question. 


150  THE  STORY  OF  LINCOLN 


iC 


How  many  legs,"  he  asked,  "will  a  slieep  have  if 
you  call  the  sheep's  tail  a  leg?" 

They  promptly  answered  five. 

"You  are  wrong,"  he  replied,  "for  calling  a 
sheep's  tail  a  leg  won't  make  it  so." 

To  importunate  and  impetuous  persons  Lincoln  al- 
ways had  the  right  reply.  Once  a  rather  proud 
mother  came  before  him  with  a  rather  haughty-look- 
ing son. 

"Mr.  President,"  she  said  very  conclusively,  "you 
must  give  a  Colonel's  commission  to  my  son." 

He  waited  for  her  to  explain  why  he  must  do  so. 

"Sir,"  she  exclaimed,  "I  have  a  right  to  demand 
it.  My  grandfather  fought  at  Lexington;  my  uncle 
stood  his  gromid  at  Blandensburg ;  my  father  fought 
at  New  Orleans ;  and  my  husband  was  killed  at  Mon- 
terey." 

I  guess.   Madam,"  Lincoln  promptly  replied, 

that  your  family  has  done  its  share  for  its  coun- 
try.   Let's  give  others  a  chance.'^ 


IV.     THE  GREAT  TRAGEDY 


Our  story  here  has  to  do  only  with  episodes  that 
compose  the  personal  interest  of  Lincoln  and  does 


THE  GREAT  TRAGEDY  151 


not  take  into  consideration  the  usual  public  or  po- 
litical affairs  that  build  up  his  historical  character 
and  national  service.  But  the  tragedy  of  his  mar- 
tyrdom has  many  important  points  of  interest  relat- 
ing to  the  interpretation  of  his  personal  life.  The 
Book  of  Fate  opens  only  upon  the  past  and  we  call 
it  history,  but  it  is  the  ^^ light  of  experience"  for  so- 
cial reason  and  the  moral  law. 

On  the  evening  of  April  14,  1865,  a  happy  party 
of  distinguished  friends  were  gathered  for  dinner 
with  President  Lincoln  at  the  White  House.  Mrs. 
Lincoln,  being  the  manager  of  social  affairs,  made 
up  a  theatre  party  to  see  Laura  Keene  play  **Our 
American  Cousin"  at  Ford's  Theatre.  In  the  party 
were  General  Grant  and  his  wife,  and  Governor 
Oglesby  of  Illinois.  The  box  for  the  party  having 
been  procured  in  the  morning,  the  manager  of  the 
theatre  announced  in  the  afternoon  papers  that  the 
President  and  the  Hero  of  Appomattox  would  be 
present  at  the  farewell  benefit  performance  of  Miss 
Keene. 

The  house  was  filled,  but  the  President  came  late, 
as  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Grant  had  decided  to  take  the  train 
that  evening  for  the  West,  and  Mrs.  Lincoln  had  to 
rearrange  the  plans  for  her  party,  so  as  to  include 
Major  Eathburn  and  his  stepsister.  Miss  Harris, 
daughter  of  Senator  Harris  of  New  York.     The 


152  THE  STORY  OF  LINCOLN 

President  desired  to  give  up  going,  but,  on  being 
told  how  disappointed  the  public  would  be,  he  yielded 
to  the  persuasion  and  went. 

They  arrived  about  the  middle  of  the  first  act  and 
were  received  with  loud  applause,  the  people  stand- 
ing as  the  band  played  *'Hail  to  the  Chief." 

One  can  hardly  refrain  from  pausing,  as  this  scene 
comes  before  the  mind,  to  wonder  if  the  log-cabin 
boy  had  beheld  this  scene  in  a  prophetic  dream  how 
extravagant  and  impossible  it  would  have  seemed. 

On  reaching  the  box,  the  President  took  a  large 
arm-chair  in  front,  with  Mrs.  Lincoln  by  his  side 
on  the  right. 

After  they  were  seated,  the  interrupted  play  was 
resumed. 

It  was  about  the  middle  of  the  third  act,  the  time 
10.20,  when  the  audience  was  startled  by  a  shot,  and 
immediately  the  shout,  **Sic  semper  tyrannis''  (so 
ever  to  tyrants).  Next  came  the  piercing  shriek  of 
Mrs.  Lincoln,  then  a  well-known  actor,  John  Wilkes 
Booth,  was  seen  to  swing  out  over  the  box  and  fall 
heavily  upon  the  stage. 

The  horrified  people  arose  with  cries  of  alarm  and 
all  was  confusion,  so  that  witnesses  from  the  audi- 
ence could  see  no  more,  and  they  poured  forth  into 
the  streets  with  the  dreadful  news  that  the  President 
had  been  shot. 


THE  GREAT  TRAGEDY  153 

Booth  had  desired  to  make  the  assassination  as 
spectacular  and  sensational  as  possible.  He  pre- 
pared himself,  just  before  the  terrible  deed,  with  a 
heavy  drink  of  whisky  in  the  nearby  saloon.  Going 
into  the  theatre  from  the  front,  he  passed  along  the 
wall  to  the  passageway  leading  to  the  box.  He  took 
out  a  visiting  card  and  went  up  to  the  President's 
messenger,  who  was  sitting  just  outside.  Presenting 
the  card,  he  passed  through  the  door  into  the  aisle 
back  of  the  box,  closing  and  barring  the  door  after 
him.  Slipping  in  just  behind  the  President,  he  aimed 
the  pistol  at  the  back  of  his  victim's  head  and  fired 
the  shot. 

Some  testify  that  his  first  words  were  *' Revenge 
for  the  South." 

As  the  assassin  swung  himself  over  to  take  the 
twelve-foot  leap  to  the  stage.  Major  Rathburn  of 
the  party  tried  to  catch  him,  and  so  received  a  severe 
wound  on  the  hand  from  a  dagger.  An  American 
flag  draped  the  front  of  the  stage,  and  in  this  Booth's 
spur  caught,  throwing  him  so  as  to  fracture  his  left 
leg,  and  which  actually  resulted  in  being  the  cause 
of  his  capture.  This  flag  has  thus  been  called  the 
*'mute  avenger  of  its  Nation's  Chief." 

Excited  crowds  were  nothing  new  in  Washington, 
but  witnesses  declare  they  never  saw  such  insane 
despair  as  that  with  which  the  people  expressed  their 


154  THE  STORY  OF  LINCOLN 


grief.  Shouting,  frenzied  men  and  women  ran  aim- 
lessly here  and  there  in  a  chaos  of  ungovernable 
disorder. 

People  could  hardly  believe  that  the  hideous  deed 
had  been  done  by  John  Wilkes  Booth,  whose  rising 
fame  as  a  tragedian  was  only  surpassed  by  his  fa- 
mous brother  and  father.  But  he  had  been  recog- 
nized by  Laura  Keene,  as  with  quick  thought  she 
grasped  a  glass  of  water  and  ran  to  the  President's 
box.  She  seemed  to  be  almost  the  first  to  under- 
stand, and  to  reach  the  martyr's  side  with  help  for 
him.  She  held  his  head  in  her  lap  while  the  doctors 
were  examining  the  wound.  Her  silk  dress  stained 
with  his  blood  is  still  kept  with  the  sacred  relics  at 
his  tomb  in  Springfield,  Illinois. 

The  picture  of  that  box  party  cannot  be  surpassed 
by  anything  ever  set  up  in  the  romantic  imagination. 
At  the  death-moment  it  contained  five  persons.  One 
of  them  was  the  greatest  man  of  his  time,  just  emerg- 
ing as  victor  in  one  of  the  most  consequential  strug- 
gles of  all  human  history.  The  death  blow  was  upon 
him  from  a  type  of  man  as  utterly  his  opposite  in 
everything  making  the  form  of  man  that  anyone  can 
conceive.  He  was  of  the  most  illustrious  family  of 
actors  in  his  time,  handsome,  a  fashionable  beau,  and 
a  moral  degenerate, — the  most  courted  idler  of  the 
social  show.    For  his  deed  he  was  destined  in  a  few 


THE  GEE  AT  TRAGEDY 155 

weeks  to  die  the  death  of  a  beaten  dog  in  a  filthy- 
stable.  But  no  less  in  direful  tragedy  was  the  fate 
of  the  betrothed  lovers,  Major  Rathburn  and  his 
stepsister,  Miss  Harris,  who  were  the  guests  in  that 
ghastly  social  hour.  A  few  months  later  the  young 
man  went  insane,  killed  his  sweetheart  and  died  in  a 
madhouse. 

Lincoln  was  still  alive  but  unconscious  when  re- 
sponsible persons,  in  a  few  minutes,  came  into  con- 
trol. He  was  carried  across  the  street  to  the  nearest 
room  where  he  could  be  made  as  comfortable  as  pos- 
sible. The  doctors  had  no  hope  that  he  would  ever 
return  to  consciousness.  The  surgeons  and  the  near- 
est official  friends  were  all  that  were  allowed  to  re- 
main in  the  little  room  with  him.  The  pale  light  of 
a  single  gas  jet  flickered  down  over  him.  Secretary 
Stanton  stood  against  the  wall  writing  telegrams 
that  told  how  the  battle  was  going,  and  giving  orders 
needed  to  keep  the  peace  of  that  dark  hour.  At  seven- 
twenty-two  the  next  morning  Lincoln's  heart  ceased 
to  beat  and  one  of  the  greatest  characters  of  history 
had  passed  from  life. 

Mr.  Stanton  closed  the  martyr's  eyes,  drew  the 
sheet  over  his  face,  and  said,  ^'Now  he  belongs  to  the 
Ages,'' 


CHAPTER   X 

I.      THE  FRIEND  OF  HUMANITY 

The  nation  was  in  mourning  at  the  unspeakable 
tragedy.  Friend  and  foe  had  just  begun  to  learn 
how  great  was  the  difference  between  him  and  other 
men.  Coming  as  it  did  at  the  close  of  the  war,  in 
the  very  dawn  of  peace,  the  assassination  seemed  so 
needless  and  cruel,  even  in  the  name  of  his  bitterest 
foe. 

Walt  Whitman  wrote  one  of  the  most  stirring  ap- 
preciations of  the  time. 

*  *  O  Captain  I   My  Captain  I   Our  fearful  trip  is  done, 
The  ship  has  weathered  every  wrack,  the  prize  we 

sought  is  won. 
The  port  is  near,  the  bells  I  hear,  the  people  all  ex- 
ulting. 
While  follow  eyes  the  steady  keel,  the  vessel  grim 

and  daring. 

15a 


TEE  FRIEND  OF  HUMANITY        157 

''But  O  heart!  heart  I  heart! 
O  the  bleeding  drops  of  red, 
Where  on  the  deck  my  Captain  lies, 
Fallen,  cold  and  dead. 

''0  Captain!    My  Captain!    Rise  up  and  hear  the 

bells ; 
Rise  up — for  you  the  flag  is  flung — for  you  the  bugle 

trills, 
For  you  the  bouquets  and  ribboned  wreaths,  for 

you  the  shores  a-crowding. 
For  you  they  call,  the  swaying  mass,  their  eager 

faces  turning; 

''Here,  Captain!  dear  father! 
This  arm  beneath  your  head! 
It  is  some  dream  that  on  the  deck 
YouVe  fallen  cold  and  dead. 

"My  Captain  does  not  answer  me,  his  lips  are  pale 

and  still. 
My  father  does  not  feel  my  arm,  he  has  no  pulse  nor 

will, 
The  ship  is  anchored  safe  and  sound,  its  voyage 

closed  and  done, 
From  fearful  trip  the  victor  ship  comes  in  with 

object  won. 


158  TEE  STORY  OF  LINCOLN 


^' Exult,  O  shores,  and  ring,  O  bells  I 
But  I  with  mournful  tread, 
Walk  the  deck,  my  Captain  lies, 
Fallen,  cold  and  dead." 


"^j 


William  CuUen  Bryant  wrote  the  ode  for  the  fune- 
ral services  held  in  New  York  City.  Two  of  the  stan- 
zas are  as  follows: 

**In  sorrow  by  thy  bier  we  stand, 
Amid  the  awe  that  husheth  all. 
And  speak  the  anguish  of  a  land 
That  shook  with  horror  at  thy  f  alL 


n 


Pure  was  thy  life ;  its  bloody  close 
Has  placed  thee  with  the  Sons  of  Light, 
Among  the  noble  hearts  of  those 
Who  perished  in  the  cause  of  Right." 

Ralph  Waldo  Emerson  wrote  for  the  funeral  ser-      i 
vices  at  Concord,  Massachusetts,  a  poem  of  which  the 
following  is  the  last  stanza : 

"Great  captains,  with  their  guns  and  drums, 
Disturb  our  judgment  for  the  hour, 
But  at  last,  silence  comes; 
These  all  are  gone,  and,  standing  like  a  tower, 


THE  FRIEND  OF  HUMANITY         159 


Our  children  shall  behold  his  fame, 
The  kindly-earnest,  brave,  foreseeing  man, 
Sagacious,  patient,  dreading  praise,  not  blame, 
New  birth  of  our  new  soil,  the  first  American/' 


n.      THE  TIME  WHEN  "THOSE  WHO  CAME  TO  SCOFF  RE- 


MAINED  TO  PRAT^' 


Lincoln's  death  was  received  throughout  the 
South  generally  as  the  death  of  an  enemy.  Well  do 
they  know  now  that  it  could  have  been  said  of  them 
then,  ''Father  forgive  them,  for  they  know  not  what 
they  do." 

The  sorrow  throughout  the  North  was  as  in  the 
midst  of  Egypt's  ancient  woe.  It  was  as  if  ''There 
was  not  a  house  where  there  was  not  one  dead." 

As  was  once  said  of  a  great  martyr  of  liberty,  slain 
three  centuries  before,  so  it  could  be  said  of  Lin- 
coln, "He  went  through  life  bearing  the  load  of  a 
people's  sorrows  upon  his  shoulders  with  a  smiling 
face.  While  he  lived  he  was  the  guiding  star  of  a 
whole  brave  nation,  and  when  he  died  the  little  chil- 
dren cried  in  the  streets." 

Periodicals  that  had  ridiculed  him  from  his  first 
appearance  in  their  view,  and  that  had  caused  many 


160  THE  STORY  OF  LINCOLN 

of  their  readers  to  believe  him  little  better  than  a 
clown  in  the  arena  of  affairs,  or  than  a  court  fool 
before  the  nations,  dropped  their  defaming  carica- 
tures of  him,  and  gave  him  nearer  justice. 

One  of  the  most  belittling  and  besmirching  peri- 
odicals of  England  against  Lincoln  was  the  '*  London 
Punch. '^  The  war-president  of  the  United  States 
was,  largely  from  this  source  of  authority,  the  jest 
of  all  Europe. 

But  the  issue  following  the  assassination  of  Lin- 
coln contained  a  great  picture.  It  was  symbolical 
of  England  laying  a  wreath  of  flowers  upon  Lincoln's 
coffin.  The  picture  was  drawn  by  Tenniel  and  with 
it  was  a  most  penitent  poem  by  Tom  Taylor,  who  was 
author  of  the  play,  "Our  American  Cousin,"  which 
Lincoln  was  attending  when  assassinated.  Five  of 
the  expressive  stanzas  are  as  follows : 

"So  he  grew  up,  a  destined  work  to  do, 
And  lived  to  do  it ;  four  long  suffering  years, 

Ill-fate,  ill-feeling,  ill-report  lived  through, 
And  then  he  heard  the  hisses  changed  to  cheers; 

"The  taunts  to  tribute,  the  abuse  to  praise. 
And  took  both  with  the  same  unwavering  mood: 

Till,  as  he  came  to  light,  from  darkling  days. 
And  seemed  to  touch  the  goal  from  where  he  stood, 


''THOSE  WHO  GAME  TO  SCOFF''     161 


*'A  felon  hand,  between  the  goal  and  him, 
Reached  from  behind  his  back,  a  trigger  pressed, — 

And  those  perplexed  and  patient  eyes  grew  dim, 
Those  gaunt,  long-laboring  limbs  were  laid  to  rest  I 

* 'Beside  this  corpse,  that  bears  for  winding  sheet 
The  Stars  and  Stripes  he  lived  to  rear  anew, 

Between  the  mourners  at  his  head  and  feet. 
Say,  scurril  jester,  is  there  room  for  you? 

*'Yes,  he  had  lived  to  shame  me  from  my  sneer, 
To  lame  my  pencil  and  confute  my  pen ; 

To  make  me  own  this  hind  of  princes  peer, 
This  rail-splitter,  a  true-born  king  of  men.'* 

In  1879,  at  an  unveiling  in  Boston  of  Freedman's 
Memorial  Statue,  a  duplicate  of  the  original  in  Lin- 
coln Square,  Washington,  a  poem  was  read  from 
Whittier,  of  which  the  last  three  stanzas  are  the 
most  significant  in  their  characterization.  It  beau- 
tifully expresses  the  faith  that  in  righteousness  is 
personal  power,  even  as  it  also  ''exalteth  a  nation. 

'*We  rest  in  peace  where  these  sad  eyes 

Saw  peril,  strife  and  pain; 
His  was  the  nation's  sacrifice, 

And  ours  the  priceless  gain. 


>> 


162  THE  STORY  OF  LINCOLN 

^*0,  symbol  of  God's  will  on  earth 

As  it  is  done  above  I 
Bear  witness  to  the  cost  and  worth 

Of  justice  and  of  love. 

**  Stand  in  thy  place  and  testify 

To  coming  ages  long, 
That  truth  is  stronger  than  a  lie, 

And  righteousness  than  wrong." 


in.     SOME  TYPICAL  EXAMPLES  GIVING  VIEWS  OF  LIN- 
COLN'S LIFE 

Vachel  Lindsay  invokes  the  spirit  of  American 
patriotism  when  he  says, 

*^  "Would  I  might  rouse  the  Lincoln  in  you  all, 
That  which  is  gendered  in  the  wilderness, 
From  lonely  prairies  and  God's  tenderness. 
Imperial  soul,  star  of  a  weedy  stream, 
Born  where  the  ghosts  of  buffaloes  still  dream. 
Whose  spirit  hoof -beats  storm  above  his  grave. 
About  that  breast  of  earth  and  prairie-fire — 
Fire  that  freed  the  slave." 


SOME  TYPICAL  EXAMPLES  163 

Herr  Loewes  in  the  Prussian  Parliament  said: 
*'Mr.  Lincoln  performed  his  duties  without  pomp  or 
ceremony,  and  relied  on  that  dignity  of  the  inner 
self  alone,  which  is  far  above  rank,  orders  and  titles. 
He  was  a  faithful  servant,  not  less  of  his  own  coun- 
try than  of  civilization,  freedom  and  humanity." 

Oliver  Wendell  Holmes,  writing  of  Lincoln's 
death,  said: 


<< 


Dear  Lord,  with  pitying  eye  behold, 

This  martyr  generation, 

Which  Thou,  through  trials  manifold, 

Art  showing  Thy  salvation! 

O  let  the  blood  by  murder  spilt 

Wash  out  Thy  stricken  children's  guilt, 

And  sanctify  our  nation  I" 


Samuel  Francis  Smith,   author  of  the  national 
hymn,  *^ America,"  in  a  long  poetic  tribute  wrote : 


it 


Grandly  he  loved  and  lived ; 

Not  his  own  age  alone 

Bears  the  proud  impress  of  his  sovereign  mind. 

Down  the  long  march  of  history, 

Ages  and  men  shall  see 

What  one  great  soul  can  be 


164  THE  STORY  OF  LINCOLN 

What  one  great  soul  can  do 
To  make  a  nation  true." 

Horace  Fiske  closed  a  poem  inspired  by  the  Saint 
Gauden's  statue,  as  follows: 

^'In  human  strength  he  towers  almost  divine, 
His  mighty  shoulders  bent  with  breaking  care. 

His  thought- worn  face  with  sympathies  grown  fine ; 
And  as  men  gaze,  their  hearts  as  oft  declare 

That  this  is  he  whom  all  their  hearts  enshrine 

This  man  that  saved  a  race  from  slow  despair.'^ 

Theodore  Roosevelt  said,  in  an  address  on  the 
character  of  Lincoln,  ''One  of  his  most  wonderful 
characteristics  was  the  extraordinary  way  in  which 
he  could  fight  valiantly  against  what  he  deemed 
wrong,  and  yet  preserve  undiminished  his  love  and 
respect  for  the  brother  from  whom  he  differed. ' ' 

Woodrow  Wilson  said,  ''There  was  no  point  at 
which  life  touched  him  that  he  did  not  speak  back 
to  it  instantly  its  meaning." 

Sir  Spencer  Walpole  says  in  his  history,  "Of  all 
men  bom  to  the  Anglo-Saxon  race  in  the  nineteenth 
century,  Abraham  Lincoln  deserves  the  highest  place 
in  history.'* 


END  OF  A  HUNDRED  YEARS         165 

IV.      REMEMBRANCE  AT  THE  END  OF  A  HUNDRED  YEARS 

The  centennial  anniversary  of  Lincoln's  birth 
called  forth  expressions  of  appreciation  from  over 
all  the  world.  His  memory  and  his  meaning  had  not 
grown  dim  in  the  interests  of  humanity.  A  few  typi- 
cal examples  illustrate  the  love  and  reverence  in- 
spired by  his  great  work  in  the  human  cause. 

James  Oppenheim,  in  his  poem  in  praise  of  the 
Lincoln  child,  says, 

*'0h,  to  pour  our  love  through  deeds 

To  be  as  Lincoln  was ! 

That  all  the  land  might  fill  its  daily  needs 

Glorified  by  a  human  cause  I 

Then  were  America  a  vast  World-Torch 

Flaming  a  faith  across  the  dying  earth, 

Proclaiming  from  the  Atlantic's  rocky  porch 

That  a  New  World  was  struggling  at  the  Birth  I" 

James  Whitcomb  Riley,  writing  of  Lincoln,  the 
boy,  says  in  the  last  stanza : 

*^0r  thus  we  know,  nor  doubt  it  not, 

The  boy  he  must  have  been 
Whose  budding  heart  bloomed  with  the  thought 

All  men  are  kith  and  kin 

With  love-light  in  his  eyes  and  shade 

Of  prescient  tears :  Because 


166  THE  STORY  OF  LINCOLN 

Only  of  such  a  boy  were  made 
The  loving  man  he  was." 

Ambassador  Bryee  of  England,  speaking  at  Lin- 
coln's tomb  before  a  vast  gathering  at  the  centennial 
anniversary  of  Lincoln's  birth,  said,  "To  us  in  Eng- 
land, Lincoln  is  one  of  the  heroes  of  the  race  from 
whence  we  sprung.  Great  men  are  the  noblest  pos- 
session of  a  Nation,  and  are  potent  forces  in  the 
moulding  of  national  character.  Their  influence 
lives  after  them,  and,  if  they  be  good  as  well  as  great, 
they  remain  as  beacons  lighting  the  course  of  all  who 
follow  them.  They  set  for  succeeding  generations 
the  standards  of  public  life.  They  stir  the  spirit  and 
rouse  the  energy  of  the  youth  who  seek  to  emulate 
their  virtues  in  the  service  of  their  country." 

Vice-President  Fairbanks  in  an  address  at  Harris- 
burg  on  that  occasion  said,  "His  life  was  spent  in 
conflict.  In  his  youth,  he  struggled  with  nature.  At 
the  bar  of  justice  he  contended  for  the  rights  of  his 
clients.  In  the  wider  field  of  politics,  he  fought  with 
uncommon  power  to  overthrow  the  wrong  and  en- 
throne the  right.  He  fought  not  for  the  love  of  con- 
quest, but  for  the  love  of  truth.  By  nature  he  was 
a  man  of  peace.  He  instinctively  loved  justice,  right, 
and  liberty.  His  conscience  impelled  him  to  uphold 
the  right  whenever  it  was  denied  his  fellowman." 

S.  E.  Kiser  ended  a  centennial  poem  with  the  fol- 
lowing stanza : 


END  OF  A  HUNDRED  YEARS         167 

*'Lo,  where  the  feet  of  Lincoln  passed,  the  earth 
Is  sacred.    Where  he  knelt  we  set  a  shrine ! 
Oh,  to  have  pressed  his  hand  I    That  had  sufficed 

To  make  my  children  wonder  at  my  worth 

Yet,  let  them  glory,  since  their  land  and  mine 
Hath  reared  the  greatest  martyr  after  Christ  I'* 

Virginia  Boyle,  in  her  poem  for  the  Philadelphia 
Brigade  Association,  said  in  two  of  her  stanzas : 

^''No  trumpet  blared  the  word  that  he  was  born, 
No  lightning  flashed  its  symbols  on  that  day : 
And  only  Poverty  and  Fate  pressed  on, 
To  serve  as  handmaids  where  he  lowly  lay. 

**And  up  from  Earth  and  toil,  he  slowly  won, 

Pressed  by  a  bitterness  he  proudly  spurned, 
Till  by  grim  courage,  born  from  sun  to  sun, 
He  turned  defeat,  as  victory  is  turned.'* 

Edwin  Markham  concluded  a  centennial  poem  as 
follows : 

*'He  held  his  place 


Held  the  long  purpose  like  a  growing  tree 

Held  on  through  blame  and  faltered  not  at  praise, 
And  when  he  fell  in  whirlwind,  he  went  down 
As  when  a  lordly  cedar,  green  with  boughs. 
Goes  down  with  a  great  shout  upon  the  hills, 
And  leaves  a  lonesome  place  against  the  skyJ 


>» 


CHAPTER  XI 
CONCLUDING  REFLECTIONS 


I.      THE  HARMONIZING  CONTRAST  OF  MEN 

American  freedom  and  democratic  humanity  re- 
quire American  minds  to  be  composed  of  free-made 
ideas,  organized  efficiently  for  the  righteous  pro- 
motion of  *'life,  liberty  and  the  pursuit  of  happi- 
ness," if  we  are  ever  to  be  safe  in  the  faith  that  "gov- 
ernment of  the  people,  by  the  people,  and  for  the  peo- 
ple shall  not  perish  from  the  earth.'' 

The  American  order,  however  defective,  even  as  it 
is  composed  of  defective  minds,  is  the  only  safety  for 
a  free  humanity.  The  Western  hemisphere  is  under 
the  control  of  that  democratic  order,  and  America  is 
large  enough  and  powerful  enough  to  stand  alone,  in 
clear  vision  and  unadulterated  theory,  for  the  rights 
of  man.  America  alone  is  clear-minded  enough  for 
the  unprejudiced  and  unbiased  championship  of  a 
free-minded  world. 

168 


THE  HARMONIZING  CONTRAST      169 

Washington  and  Lincoln  reached  the  heights  from 
which  they  saw  together  one  vision  of  the  Promised 
Land,  '^ordained  from  the  foundations  of  the  world" 
for  the  chosen  order  of  human  evolution.  They 
wanted  no  ** entangling  alliances"  with  a  foreign  or- 
der, or  a  fragmentary  system  of  human  freedom. 
Americans  have  so  far  kept  the  peace  with  the  un- 
compromised  moral  law  of  the  *'free  and  equal" 
rights  of  man.  America  is  dedicated  to  the  proposi- 
tion that  a  compromised  order  of  freedom  and 
equality,  either  through  treaty  or  war,  shall  never 
invade  the  Western  Hemisphere. 

American  youth,  and  every  newcomer  entitled  to 
home  or  refuge  on  American  soil,  must  know  the 
truth  that  makes  men  free.  That  truth  is  marvel- 
lously embodied  in  the  lives  of  Washington  and  Lin- 
coln. Their  careers  and  patriotism  have  been  con- 
trasted and  unified  by  many  learned  students  of  their 
meaning  for  America.  The  characterization  of  their 
lives,  as  significant  for  Americans,  and  needing  much 
to  be  well  understood,  has  been  nobly  done  by  Charles 
Sumner.  The  more  important  part  of  that  impres- 
sive valuation  is  as  follows: 

*'The  work  left  undone  by  Washington  was  con- 
tinued by  Lincoln.  Kindred  in  service,  kindred  in 
patriotism,  each  was  naturally  surrounded  at  death 


170  TEE  STORY  OF  LINCOLN 

by  kindred  homage.  One  sleeps  in  the  East,  the  other 
sleeps  in  the  West ;  and  thus,  in  death,  as  in  life,  one 
is  the  complement  of  the  other. 

*'Each  was  at  the  head  of  the  republic  during  a 
period  of  surpassing  trial ;  and  each  thought  only  of 
the  public  good,  simply,  purely,  constantly,  so  that 
single-hearted  devotion  to  country  will  always  find  a 
synonym  in  their  names.  Each  was  the  national 
chief  during  a  time  of  successful  war.  Each  was 
the  representative  of  his  country  at  a  great  epoch 
of  history. 

*' Unlike  in  origin,  conversation,  and  character, 
they  were  unlike,  also,  in  the  ideas  which  they  served, 
except  so  far  as  each  was  the  servant  of  his  coun- 
try. The  war  conducted  by  Washington  was  unlike 
the  war  conducted  by  Lincoln, — as  the  peace  which 
crowned  the  arms  of  the  one  was  unlike  the  peace 
which  began  to  smile  upon  the  other.  The  two  wars 
did  not  differ  in  the  scale  of  operations,  and  in  the 
tramp  of  mustered  hosts,  more  than  in  the  ideas  in- 
volved. The  first  was  for  national  independence ;  the 
second  was  to  make  the  republic  one  and  indivisible, 
on  the  indestructible  foundations  of  liberty  and 
equality.  In  the  relation  of  cause  and  effect,  the 
first  was  the  natural  precursor  and  herald  of  the 
second.  By  the  sword  of  Washington  independence 
was  secured;  but  the  unity  of  the  republic  and  the 


Vi?'     <^^ 


Emaiiciiiatiuii  Slaluc  oi'  Liuculii —  Wasliingtuu,  1).  C. 


THE  HARMONIZING  CONTRAST      171 


principles  of  the  Declaration  were  left  exposed  to 
question.  From  that  day  to  this,  through  various 
chances,  they  have  been  questioned,  and  openly  as- 
sailed,— until  at  last  the  republic  was  constrained  to 
take  up  arms  in  their  defence. 

^'Such  are  these  two  great  wars  in  which  these  two 
chiefs  bore  such  part.  Washington  fought  for  na- 
tional independence  and  trimnphed,  making  his 
comitry  an  example  to  mankind.  Lincoln  drew  a  re- 
luctant sword  to  save  those  great  ideas,  essential  to 
the  life  and  character  of  the  republic.  *  *  * 
"  Rejoice  as  you  point  to  this  child  of  the  people, 
who  was  lifted  so  high  that  republican  institutions 
became  manifest  in  him  t  *  *  *  Above  all,  see  to 
it  that  his  constant  vows  are  fulfilled,  and  that  the 
promises  of  the  fathers  are  maintained,  so  that  no 
person  in  the  upright  form  of  man  can  be  shut  out 
from  their  protection.  Then  will  the  unity  of  the 
republic  be  fixed  on  a  foundation  that  cannot  fail, 
and  other  nations  will  enjoy  its  security.  The  cor- 
ner-stone of  national  independence  is  already  in  its 
place,  and  on  it  is  inscribed  the  name  of  George 
Washington.  There  is  another  stone  which  must 
have  its  place  at  the  corner  also.  This  is  the  Decla- 
ration of  Independence,  with  all  its  promises  ful- 
filled. On  this  stone  we  will  gratefully  inscribe  the 
name  of  Abraham  Lincoln." 


172  THE  STORY  OF  LINCOLN 

Carlyle  says  that  "sincerity,  a  deep,  great,  gen- 
uine sincerity,  is  the  first  characteristic  of  all  men  in 
any  way  heroic.  All  great  men  have  this  as  the  pri- 
mary material  in  them."  This  is  why  the  so-called 
"art  for  art's  sake"  never  can  be  great.  It  is  sin- 
cerity for  merely  formal  success,  and  not  for  the 
spirit  of  "life  more  abundantly."  Formal  efficiency 
is  achieved  only  in  the  complicated  training  of  an 
extended  education,  but  social  efficiency  of  immeas- 
urably greater  value  is  the  simplicity  of  knowledge. 
It  is  the  source  and  explanation  of  all  interests,  and 
in  that  learning,  Lincoln  had  no  superior.  He  never 
achieved  any  good  that  he  did  not  at  once  want  to 
share  it  with  others.  As  a  boy  he  never  learned  any- 
thing good  that  he  did  not  want  to  express  it  to  oth- 
ers. In  this  process  of  receiving  and  giving  is  the 
fundamental  means  of  building  character  and  mind. 
In  teaching  others,  he  taught  himself,  and  thus  in 
losing  his  life  he  found  it.  In  being  able  to  tell  his 
observations  and  interpretations  to  his  comrades,  he 
was  training  to  be  the  schoolmaster  of  the  world. 

Lincoln's  earnest  sincerity  relating  to  himself,  his 
associates,  his  community,  his  country,  and  for  all 
manldnd,  may  be  illustrated  in  a  few  quotations : 

"The  man  who  will  not  investigate  both  sides  of  a 
question  is  dishonest." 

"After  all,  the  one  meaning  of  life  is  simply  to  be 
kind." 


TEE  EAEMONIZING  CONTRAST      173 

*'I  have  not  done  much,  but  this  I  have  done— 
wherever  I  have  found  a  thistle  growing,  I  have  tried 
to  pluck  it  up,  and  in  its  place  to  plant  a  flower.'' 

*'I  have  been  too  familiar  with  disappointment,  to 
be  very  much  chagrined  by  defeat." 

''Without  the  assistance  of  that  Divine  Being  I 
cannot  succeed,  and  with  that  assistance  I  cannot 
fail." 

''If  destruction  be  our  lot,  we  must  ourselves  be 
its  author  and  finisher.  As  a  nation  of  freemen  we 
must  live  through  all  time,  or  die  by  suicide." 

"A  majority  held  in  restraint  by  constitutional 
checks  and  limitations,  and  always  changing  easily 
with  deliberate  changes  of  popular  opinions  and  sen- 
timents, is  the  only  true  sovereign  of  a  free  people." 

"Twenty-five  years  ago  I  was  a  hired  laborer. 
The  hired  laborer  of  yesterday  may  labor  on  his  own 
account  today,  and  hire  others  to  labor  for  him  to- 
morrow. Advancement  and  improvement  in  condi- 
tions is  the  order  of  things  in  a  society  of  equals, — in 
a  democracy." 

In  a  speech  at  Columbus,  Ohio,  September  16, 1859, 
he  said,  "I  believe  there  is  a  genuine  popular  sover- 
eignty. I  think  a  definition  of  genuine  popular  sov- 
ereignty, in  the  abstract,  would  be  about  this :  That 
each  man  shall  do  precisely  as  he  pleases  with  him- 
self, and  with  all  those  things  which  exclusively  con- 
cern him.     Applied  to  government  this  principle 


174  THE  STORY  OF  LINCOLN 


would  be,  that  a  general  government  shall  do  all 
those  things  which  pertain  to  it,  and  all  the  local  gov- 
ernments shall  do  precisely  as  they  please  in  respect 
to  those  matters  which  exclusively  concern  them.  I 
understand  that  this  government  of  the  United 
States,  under  which  we  live,  is  based  upon  that  prin- 
ciple ;  and  I  am  misunderstood  if  it  is  supposed  that 
I  have  any  war  to  make  upon  that  principle." 

But,  there  is  a  patriotic  masterpiece  of  Lincoln's 
thought,  which,  with  the  reinforcement  of  occasion 
and  place,  such  as  the  field  of  Gettysburg  was,  con- 
tains all  the  unmeasurable  and  priceless  meaning  of 
Lincoln  for  American  patriotism  and  the  manhood 
of  America.  It  is  his  address  of  dedication  on  the 
battlefield  of  Gettysburg.  In  effect  on  the  human 
mind,  it  probably  can  never  be  surpassed  as  a  mes- 
sage of  political  freedom  for  the  rights  of  man. 


n.     A  MASTERPIECE  OF  MEANING  FOR  AMERICA 

The  battle  of  Gettysburg  is  regarded  by  historians 
as  one  of  the  decisive  battles  of  the  world.  It  was 
fought  July  2,  3  and  4,  1863.  On  the  first  anniver- 
sary, a  great  national  meeting  was  held  there  to  dedi- 
cate the  ground  as  a  government  burial  place  for  the 
soldiers  who  had  died  there. 


A  MASTERPIECE  OF  MEANING       175 

Mr.  Seward,  Secretary  of  State,  on  the  eve  of  the 
dedication,  in  the  course  of  an  address,  said,  "I  thank 
my  God  for  the  hope  that  this  is  the  last  fratricidal 
war  which  will  fall  upon  this  country,  vouchsafed  us 
from  heaven,  as  the  richest,  the  broadest,  the  most 
beautiful  and  capable  of  a  great  destiny,  that  has 
ever  been  given  to  any  part  of  the  human  race." 

At  the  opening  of  the  ceremonies,  before  a  vast 
concourse  of  people,  from  all  the  Northern  states, 
convened  on  the  open  battlefield,  Rev.  T.  H.  Stockton 
said  in  the  course  of  his  dedicatory  prayer,  **In  be- 
half of  all  humanity,  whose  ideal  is  divine,  whose  first 
memory  is  Thine  image  lost,  and  whose  last  hope  is 
Thine  image  restored,  and  especially  of  our  own  na- 
tion, whose  history  has  been  so  favored,  whose  posi- 
tion is  so  peerless,  whose  mission  is  so  sublime,  and 
whose  future  so  attractive,  we  thank  Thee  for  the 
unspeakable  patience  of  Thy  compassion,  and  the  ex- 
ceeding greatness  of  Thy  loving  kindness.  .  .  .  By 
this  Altar  of  Sacrifice,  on  this  Field  of  Deliverance, 
on  this  Mount  of  Salvation,  within  the  fiery  and 
bloody  line  of  these  ^munitions  of  rocks, '  looking  back 
to  the  dark  days  of  fear  and  trembling,  and  to  the 
rapture  of  relief  that  came  after,  we  multiply  our 
thanksgivings  and  confess  our  obligations.  .  .  .  Our 
enemies  .  .  .  prepared  to  cast  the  chain  of  Slavery 
around  the  form  of  Freedom,  binding  life  and  death 
together  forever.  .  .  .    But,  behind  these  hills  was 


176  THE  STORY  OF  LINCOLN 

heard  the  feeble  march  of  a  smaller,  but  still  pursuing 
host.  Onward  they  hurried,  day  and  night,  for  God 
and  their  country.  Footsore,  wayworn,  hungry, 
thirsty,  faint, — but  not  in  heart, — they  came  to  dare 
all,  to  bear  all,  and  to  do  all  that  is  possible  to  he- 
roes. .  .  .  Baffled,  bruised,  broken,  their  enemies  re- 
coiled, retired  and  disappeared.  .  .  .  But  oh,  the 
slain  I  .  .  .  From  the  Coasts  beneath  the  Eastern 
Star,  from  the  shores  of  Northern  lakes  and  rivers, 
from  the  flowers  of  Western  prairies,  and  from  the 
homes  of  the  Midway  and  Border,  they  came  here  to 
die  for  us  and  for  mankind.  ...  As  the  trees  are  not 
dead,  though  their  foliage  is  gone,  so  our  heroes  are 
not  dead,  though  their  forms  have  fallen.  .  .  .  The 
spirit  of  their  example  is  here.  And,  so  long  as  time 
lasts,  the  pilgrims  of  our  own  land,  and  from  all 
lands,  will  thrill  with  its  inspiration." 

Edward  Everett,  as  the  orator  of  the  day,  said  in 
the  course  of  his  scholarly  address,  ^^As  my  eye 
ranges  over  the  fields  whose  sod  was  so  recently 
moistened  by  the  blood  of  gallant  and  loyal  men,  I 
feel,  as  never  before,  how  truly  it  was  said  of  old,  4t 
is  sweet  and  becoming  to  die  for  one's  country.'  I 
feel,  as  never  before,  how  justly  from  the  dawn  of  his- 
tory to  the  present  time,  men  have  paid  the  homage 
of  their  gratitude  and  admiration  to  the  memory  of 
those  who  nobly  sacrificed  their  lives,  that  their  fel- 
lowmen  may  live  in  safety  and  honor.  ...    I  do  not 


A  MASTEBPIECE  OF  MEANING       177 

believe  there  is  in  all  history,  the  record  of  a  Civil 
War  of  such  gigantic  dimensions  where  so  little  has 
been  done  in  the  spirit  of  vindictiveness  as  in  this 
war.  .  .  .  There  is  no  bitterness  in  the  hearts  of  the 
masses.  .  .  .  The  bonds  that  unite  us  as  one  Peo- 
ple,— a  substantial  community  of  origin,  language, 
belief  and  law ;  common,  national  and  political  inter- 
ests .  .  .  these  bonds  of  union  are  of  perennial  force 
and  energy,  while  the  causes  of  alienation  are  imag- 
inary, factitious  and  transient.  The  heart  of  the  Peo- 
ple, North  and  South,  is  for  the  Union.  .  .  .  The 
weary  masses  of  the  people  are  yearning  to  see  the 
dear  old  flag  floating  over  their  capitols,  and  they 
sigh  for  the  return  of  peace,  prosperity  and  happi- 
ness, which  they  enjoyed  under  a  government  whose 
power  was  felt  only  in  its  blessings.  .  .  .  You  feel, 
though  the  occasion  is  mournful,  that  it  is  good  to  be 
here !  God  bless  the  Union !  It  is  dearer  to  us  for  the 
blood  of  brave  men  which  has  been  shed  in  its  de- 
fense. «  .  .  'The  whole  earth,'  said  Pericles,  as  he 
stood  over  the  remains  of  his  fellow  citizens,  who  had 
fallen  in  the  first  year  of  the  Peloponnesian  War, 
Hhe  whole  earth  is  the  sepulchre  of  illustrious  men.' 
All  time,  he  might  have  added,  is  the  millenium  of 
their  glory.'' 

The  place  and  the  occasion  were  supremely  inspir- 
ing to  patriotism,  not  only  for  the  triumph  of  moral 
principle  in  one's  country,  but  for  its  meaning  to  all 


178  THE  STORY  OF  LINCOLN 

humanity.  The  great  battlefield  spread  out  before 
the  eyes  of  the  vast  concourse  gathered  there  from  all 
the  states,  and  the  spirit  of  the  heroic  scenes  animated 
every  mind. 

Edward  Everett,  then  regarded  as  the  greatest 
orator  in  America,  had  delivered  the  dedicatory  ora- 
tion through  a  long  strain  of  attention,  during  the 
weary  and  fatiguing  hours.  The  President  was  then 
called  on  to  close  the  dedication  with  whatever  he 
might  feel  desirable  to  say.  He  did  so  in  a  few  words, 
but  these  few  words  are  cherished  as  among  the  great- 
est contributions  to  the  meaning  of  civilization.  To 
one  of  the  decisive  battles  for  freedom  in  the  world, 
it  gave  a  starry  crown  from  ^'the  voice  of  the  people" 
as  "the  voice  of  God." 

The  War  Department  appropriated  five  thousand 
dollars  to  cast  this  speech  in  bronze  and  set  it  up  on 
the  battlefield  of  Gettysburg.  It  is  regarded  as  a 
masterpiece  of  dedication  in  the  literature  of  the 
world. 

"Fourscore  and  seven  years  ago  our  fathers 
brought  forth  on  this  continent  a  new  nation,  con- 
ceived in  liberty,  and  dedicated  to  the  proposition 
that  all  men  are  created  equal. 

"Now  we  are  engaged  in  a  great  civil  war  testing 
whether  that  nation,  or  any  nation  so  conceived  and 
so  dedicated,  can  long  endure.    We  are  met  on  a 


A  MASTERPIECE  OF  MEANING       179 

great  battlefield  of  that  war.  We  have  come  to  dedi- 
cate a  portion  of  that  field  as  a  final  resting  place 
for  those  who  here  gave  their  lives  that  that  nation 
might  live.  It  is  altogether  fitting  and  proper  that 
we  should  do  this. 

''But,  in  a  larger  sense,  we  cannot  dedicate,  we 
cannot  consecrate,  we  cannot  hallow  this  ground. 
The  brave  men,  living  and  dead,  who  struggled  here, 
have  consecrated  it  far  above  our  poor  power  to 
add  or  detract.  The  world  will  little  note,  nor  long 
remember,  what  we  say  here,  but  it  can  never  forget 
what  they  did  here. 

*'It  is  for  us,  the  living,  rather  to  be  dedicated 
here  to  the  unfinished  work  which  they  who  fought 
here  have  thus  far  so  nobly  advanced.  It  is  rather 
for  us  to  be  here  dedicated  to  the  great  task  remain- 
ing before  us :  that  from  the  same  honored  dead  we 
take  increased  devotion  to  that  cause  for  which  they 
gave  the  last  full  measure  of  devotion ;  that  we  here 
highly  resolve  that  these  dead  should  not  have  died 
in  vain;  that  this  nation,  under  God,  shall  have  a 
new  birth  of  freedom,  and  that  government  of  the 
people,  by  the  people,  for  the  people,  shall  not  perish 
from  the  earth.  *' 


180  TEE  STORY  OF  LINCOLN 


m.      THE  MISSION  OF  AMERICA 

The  understanding  person  who  becomes  conscious 
of  a  meaning  for  his  life,  realizes  a  most  important 
responsibility  to  work  for  the  betterment  of  his  mind 
and  the  material  conditions  that  are  to  become  as 
his  future  self.  The  moral  person,  who  becomes  con- 
scious of  a  meaning  for  human  life,  works  for  this 
betterment  as  his  contribution  to  the  progress  of  pos- 
terity. This  means  that  a  moral  individual  coin- 
cides with  a  social  humanity.  Anything  not  thus  har- 
monizing morally  for  the  world  as  it  is,  in  order  to 
promote  a  world  as  it  ought  to  be,  is  an  enemy  of  both 
self  and  society. 

Lincoln  admonishes  us  to  remember  that  "The 
struggle  of  today  is  not  altogether  for  today, — it  is 
for  a  vast  future  also."  We  learned  rapidly,  when 
the  true  situation  came  into  our  view,  that,  as  Pro- 
fessor Phelps  voiced  it  long  ago,  "To  save  America 
we  must  save  the  world. '^  American  patriotism  is 
clearly  world-patriotism,  and  it  has  become  synony- 
mous with  humanity.  This  old  truth  was  discovered 
by  the  Revolutionary  Fathers,  and  it  is  the  mission 
of  America  to  make  it  the  truth  of  the  World. 

The  International  Teachers'  Congress  represent- 
ing eighteen  nations,  which  met  at  Liege  in  1905, 
adopted  five  definite  ideas  of  International  Peace, 


THE  MISSION  OF  AMERICA  181 

that  should  be  promoted  through  all  available  ways, 
in  all  the  schools  of  civilized  nations.  Briefly  stated, 
those  fundamental  ideas  were  as  follows : 

1.  The  morality  of  individuals  is  the  same  for 
people  and  nations. 

2.  The  ideal  of  brotherly  love  has  no  limit. 

3.  All  life  must  be  duly  respected. 

4.  Human  rights  are  the  same  for  one  and  all. 

5.  Love  of  country  coincides  with  love  of  human- 
ity. 

Such  principles  and  such  a  definition  of  patriotism 
were  upheld  by  the  makers  and  preservers  of  Amer- 
ica, at  the  greatest  cost  of  treasure  and  life,  and  they 
are  the  life-interest  of  every  one  worthy  of  the  name 
American.  It  moved  Bishop  J.  P.  Newman  to  say 
of  Lincoln  in  his  anniversary  oration  of  1894,  **  Lin- 
coln's mission  was  as  large  as  his  country,  vast  as 
humanity,  enduring  as  time.  No  greater  thought  can 
ever  enter  the  human  mind  than  obedience  to  law  and 
freedom  for  all.  .  .  .  Time  has  vindicated  the  char- 
acter of  his  statesmanship,  that  to  preserve  the  Union 
was  to  save  this  great  nation  for  human  liberty." 

American  faith  has  at  last  come  to  the  conditions 
when  it  can  realize  itself  in  fulfilling  the  moral  work 
of  the  world.  That  vision  came  into  full  view  during 
the  Great  European  War. 


182  THE  STORY  OF  LINCOLN 

President  Wilson,  in  his  address  to  Congress,  April 
2, 1917,  said : 

**We  are  at  the  beginning  of  an  age  in  which  it  will 
be  insisted  that  the  same  standards  of  conduct  and 
of  responsibility  for  wrong  shall  be  observed  among 
nations  and  their  Governments  that  are  observed 
among  the  individual  citizens  of  civilized  states/^ 

Congress  acted  upon  this  reaffirmation  of  the  re- 
sponsibility of  Americans  and  the  mission  of  Amer- 
ica. Concerning  the  monstrous  invasion  of  humanity 
and  ruthless  denial  of  international  law,  he  said : 

**  Neutrality  is  no  longer  feasible  or  desirable  where 
the  peace  of  the  world  is  involved  and  the  freedom 
of  its  peoples  and  the  menace  to  that  peace  and  free- 
dom lies  in  the  existence  of  autocratic  Governments 
backed  by  organized  force  which  is  controlled  wholly 
by  their  will,  not  by  the  will  of  their  people.  We  have 
seen  the  last  of  neutrality  in  such  circumstances." 

The  Way  of  Peace,  as  the  morality  of  democracies, 
he  clearly  defined,  so  that  even  the  worst  prejudice 
could  not  becloud  the  issue  with  irrelevant  or  con- 
tradictory assertions. 

^*A  steadfast  concert  for  peace  can  never  be  main- 
tained except  by  a  partnership  of  democratic  na- 
tions. No  autocratic  Government  could  be  trusted  to 
keep  faith  within  it  or  observe  its  covenants.  It  must 
be  a  league  of  honor,  a  partnership  of  opinion.  In- 
trigue would  eat  its  vitals  away ;  the  plotters  of  inner 


THE  MISSION  OF  AMERICA  183 

circles  who  could  plan  what  they  would  and  render 
account  to  no  one  would  be  a  corruption  seated  at 
its  very  heart.  Only  free  peoples  can  hold  their  pur- 
pose and  their  honor  steady  to  a  common  end  and 
prefer  the  interests  of  mankind  to  any  narrow  inter- 
est of  their  own." 

Washington  was  charged  with  the  heroic  task  of 
making  the  thirteen  colonies  safe  for  ^^Life,  Liberty, 
and  the  Pursuit  of  Happiness;"  Lincoln's  patriotic 
mission  was  to  unchain  this  Ideal  for  all  America: 
and  Wilson's  sublime  conception  was  to  make  the 
world  ^^safe  for  democracy,"  that  its  peace  might  be 
planted  on  *Hhe  trusted  foundations  of  liberty." 

A  mind-union  upon  human  meaning  as  an  ideal  is 
necessary  for  the  patriotism  of  America.  The 
right  to  life  means  that  the  making  of  right  life  has 
a  right  way.  Those  who  deny  the  meaning  of  Amer- 
ica divest  themselves  of  all  claims  in  reason  upon  the 
rights  of  life  defined  in  American  history.  The 
American  kingdom  of  right  is  perfecting  itself  as 
rapidly  as  minds  can  be  mobilized  for  its  sublime 
task.  The  war-message  extending  the  definition  of 
American  freedom  says : 

**We  have  no  selfish  ends  to  serve.  We  desire  no 
conquest,  no  dominion.  We  seek  no  indemnities  for 
ourselves,  no  material  compensation  for  the  sacrifices 
we  shall  freely  make.  We  are  but  one  of  the  cham- 
pions of  the  rights  of  mankind.   We  shall  be  satisfied 


184  THE  STORY  OF  LINCOLN 

when  those  rights  have  been  made  as  secure  as  the 
faith  and  the  freedom  of  the  nations  can  make  them." 

And,  finally,  the  duty  of  every  American,  worthy  of 
America,  enters  the  third  epoch  of  American  history, 
as  did  the  patriot  duty  of  Washington  and  Lincoln 
in  their  time.  The  message  concludes  in  these  meas- 
ured terms : 

**It  is  a  fearful  thing  to  lead  this  great,  peaceful 
people  into  war — into  the  most  terrible  and  disas- 
trous of  all  wars,  civilization  itself  seeming  to  be  in 
the  balance. 

^*But  the  right  is  more  precious  than  peace,  and  we 
shall  fight  for  the  things  which  we  have  always  car- 
ried nearest  our  hearts — for  democracy,  for  the  right 
of  those  who  submit  to  authority  to  have  a  voice  in 
their  own  Governments,  for  the  rights  and  liberties 
of  small  nations,  for  a  universal  dominion  of  right 
by  such  a  concert  of  free  peoples  as  shall  bring  peace 
and  safety  to  all  nations  and  make  the  world  itself 
at  last  free. 

*^To  such  a  task  we  can  dedicate  our  lives  and  our 
fortunes,  everything  that  we  are  and  everything  that 
we  have,  with  the  pride  of  those  who  know  that  the 
day  has  come  when  America  is  privileged  to  spend 
her  blood  and  her  might  for  the  principles  that  gave 
her  birth  and  happiness  and  the  peace  which  she  has 
treasured.   God  helping  her,  she  can  do  no  other. '  * 


THE  MISSION  OF  AMEBIC  A  185 

The  world  in  its  social  evolution  has  come  on 
through  its  immemorial  struggle  to  the  crisis  in  its 
history,  where  civilization,  as  liberty  in  moral  law, 
can  progress  further  only  as  the  forces  of  humanity 
are  organized  *'to  make  the  world  safe  for  democ- 
racy. '  ^  The  final  truth  is  that  the  world  will  be  made 
safe  for  democracy  when  democracy  is  made  safe  for 
the  individual.  All  political  creeds,  religious  inter- 
ests and  moral  ideals,  must  have  this  democracy  in 
which  to  work,  before  they  can  become  free  to  develop 
their  own  truth. 

Autocratic  egotism,  whether  framed  in  national  or 
personal  will,  among  many  or  few,  must  perish  from 
the  earth,  with  all  its  spoils  and  masteries,  before 
there  can  be  any  possible  '' government  of  the  people, 
for  the  people  and  by  the  people."  As  ''a  house 
divided  against  itself  cannot  stand, "  so,  a  civilization 
cannot  stand  whose  humanity  is  divided  into  the  three 
special  interests  known  to  us  as  individuals,  the  na- 
tion and  an  alien  world. 

The  human  task  of  conscience  and  reason,  made 
clear  in  the  progress  of  experience,  finds  the  human- 
ity of  child,  mother  and  man  in  all  its  relations  and 
interests,  or  it  has  not  found  God  or  the  meaning  of 
the  Universe. 

Human  peace  and  salvation  are  gained,  not  only 
through  persuasion,  education  and  regeneration,  but 
also  that  the  composing  conditions  of  ''peace  on 


186  THE  STORY  OF  LINCOLN 

earth"  shall  be  made  materially  safe  for  "life,  liberty 
and  the  pursuit  of  happiness." 

Physically,  as  well  as  spiritually,  the  faith  that  is 
"without  works  is  dead."  The  righteousness  that 
allows  its  right  to  be  defeated  is  not  righteous,  and 
the  conscience  that  permits  the  crimes  of  inhumanity 
is  no  less  unlawful  before  man  and  God.  In  such 
conditions,  the  prophet  cried  out,  "Cursed  be  he  that 
doeth  the  work  of  the  Lord  negligently,  and  cursed 
be  he  that  keepeth  back  his  sword  from  blood. '  ^ 

The  American  democracy  of  Washington  and  Lin- 
coln, with  their  hosts  of  devoted  associates,  means 
individual  righteousness  and  responsibility  making 
safe  the  free-born  mind  for  a  moral  world.  What  is 
an  American  and  why  so  is  the  patriotic  and  religious 
interest  developed  through  ages  of  sacrifice  and  suf- 
fering. Only  those  who  are  willing  "to  give  the  last 
full  measure  of  devotion"  to  that  divine  work  are 
heirs  to  the  humanity  of  Washington  and  Lincoln, 
and  who  are  thus  entitled  to  be  named  Americans, 
or  are  worthy  to  share  the  heritage  of  America. 


